


Foreseen

by k6fan98



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Based on a real gameplay run, Diary/Journal, Feels, Fights, Gen, Lawyers, POV First Person, Post-Apocalypse, mods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-07-20 15:12:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16139882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k6fan98/pseuds/k6fan98
Summary: She was supposed to be starting a new life with her husband and my son, in a beautiful little home with a nice picket fence out in the suburbs. Now Nate is dead, Shaun has been taken, and she's alone in an insane, savage wasteland. Nate left behind a few things to help her, but he should have saved himself. He was a soldier. She's a lawyer. She's going to get Shaun back or die trying, but right now, her money's on "die trying".Based on my current run, expanding on motivations and thoughts, and just generally getting into the protagonist's head. It's a modded run, but mostly canon-compliant, and I promise it'll be worth it!





	1. It's All Over

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off my current Fallout 4 run, which is a heavily modded roleplay run as much sense as that makes. There's nothing really lore-breaking but a few things will pop up here and there. I'm actually a fair bit ahead in the game so I'm cranking this out to catch up and then I'm hoping to keep the two in sync.
> 
> There is a bit of a plot contrivance (okay, a big one) coming up, but trust me, it makes the fic work better than you might think. If you can take it as the one unicorn and keep reading, I think it's worth it. But it's also mainly a fic I'm writing to really get into and roleplay this run so idk.
> 
> This is the first fic I'm publishing here so please be gentle :)

It’s all over.

We were supposed to be starting a new life, Nate, Shaun, and I. Nate had done his service and he was out, meaning he could stay home and take care of our little guy while I dusted off my law degree. A little unconventional, but we wouldn’t be the only family doing it in this day and age. We’d bought a brand new house in Sanctuary Hills, a beautiful little rancher with picket fences and baby blue siding. Filled it with furniture and even a domestic robot, ready to fill it with memories.

And then the bombs fell.

Nuclear war was always in the back of our minds. It was for everyone. Despite the best attempts of certain organizations and individuals, no one was ever blind to the possibility. Hyperinflation, resources shortages, shattering of alliances- we were on the path to obliteration. But we just kind of pushed that to the back of our minds, because we had bills to pay and mouths to feed. Nate and I watched the Civil Defense reels, dug a bomb shelter, joked about how it’d start, but at the end of the day we kept going like everyone else.

When the Vault-Tec rep came to our door, I almost laughed. I was going to tell him- politely, of course- where he could stick his clipboard, but Nate practically begged me to go through the process, even bringing Shaun into the argument. Maybe he knew something I didn’t, maybe he just did it to bother me, I don’t know, but he saved our lives. Not five minutes later, we were running for our lives to the Vault over the hill.

We barely made it in before Boston was obliterated. I could feel the heat, see the flash reflected on the ground. I knew better than to look at it. Poor Lily Whitfield didn’t. She was still screaming as the Vault-Tec doctors dragged her away and we continued down into the Vault, thinking we’d be starting a new life underground, probably not a great one but at least a life.

I wonder what they did to her. What they did with us… well, I don’t think she’d be useful for their twisted “experiments”. Maybe they just put a bullet in her brain, or gave her an overdoes of morphine. That would make her one of the lucky ones.

It wasn’t a safe haven, it was a prison. We had no idea what we were getting into. The staff told us they were decontamination pods, and we were too disoriented to notice the frosty surfaces and snaking cryogenic lines. I lied down, tried to relax, and passed out.

The next thing I knew, it was God knows how long later. I got to wake up just in time to see a man- no, an _animal_ \- rip Shaun away and murder Nate in cold blood while I banged helplessly against the cold glass of the pod. He turned, looked at me with his cold fucking eyes and said heartlessly, “At least we have the backup.”

I was out again a few seconds later, but I’ll never forget that.

When I came to, I went for Nate’s pod. Pried the ring off his cold, dead hand as gently as he could, muttered something about finding the monster who did it and getting our baby back. Don’t know what the hell I was thinking. What was I going to do, sue him? Maybe I’d crawl my way out to a functional justice system in a rebuilt USA, but nobody really believed that.

I don’t know. I just needed to get out, do something.

The prison had become a morgue. I tried to open the pods, pulled the release levers only to have them spring back, even kicked fruitlessly at the reinforced glass. I checked the terminals and… everyone was dead. Vault 111 wasn’t a refuge, it never was. It was a sick, twisted experiment gone horribly wrong. Even the staff didn’t survive.

Somehow, I did. Don’t know why, don’t want to think about it. I just had to get out of that hellhole. I grabbed what I could, which amounted to two pistols I could barely use, a few cans of water, a probably-rotten can of Cram, two bobby pins and a dead man’s Pip-Boy. There were these disgusting giant roaches between me and the exit. I’ll be honest, I screamed pretty loud, like a little girl, and did as much damage to the Vault as the bugs with my wild shooting.

I leave the same way I came in. The elevator isn’t as smooth anymore, and everything is filthy and covered in rust. It feels strange, I don’t know how to describe it. I know from a terminal entry that we’d been down there at least a year, but as I look around at the decrepit elevator and the scraggly vegetation above I figure it must have been quite a bit longer. How long does it take for radiation to clear? The dead guy’s Pip-Boy isn’t screaming at me telling me I’m about to fry, anyway.

There are trees, but they’re half dead and don’t have any leaves. The sky is bright and clear, at least, but that just hurts my eyes and I quickly raise my arm to shield them from the light. The rusty, broken fence, the dead vehicles, I can deal with those. It’s Hell on Earth, but… I can deal with it. I bite my lip. I try to be stoic.

It’s Sanctuary Hills that gets me.

The neighbourhood is destroyed. Not totally gone, but I think that would have been less of a shock. Everything was still there, in some form. The street and sidewalks, overgrown with dry brush. The lamp posts and mail boxes, broken and rusted. The Whitfields, the Summers, solitary Mr. Smith, the “roommates” who lived next door, their homes all now hollow shells with roofs and walls ripped open and the framing inside exposed for all to see. Our own home, empty and dead.

I want to drop to my knees and cry. Part of me feels that I should just take the held awkwardly in my hands, put it in my mouth and pull the trigger. But part of me refuses to give up, and instead I start stumbling numbly toward the barely recognizable ruins of our once-beautiful home.


	2. Knowing Was Hell

“As I live and breathe!” a familiar voice calls as I approach the ruined entrance of what was once our home.

“Codsworth?” I ask. Our Mister Handy was almost spankin’ new when the bombs dropped, and now looked like it was falling apart. Like everything else, it was filthy and covered in rust, but seemed to be fully functional. General Atomics sure knew how to build ‘em.

“It’s… it’s REALLY you!” the robot replies. It almost sounds like genuine relief. I can almost believe it’s not just an expert system and a voice synthesizer. I’d _like_ to believe it.

“My god,” I stutter. “Everything’s dead.”

“Everything’s dead? Ah yes, the garden,” Codsworth bemoans. “The posies have been problematic, I admit.”

Who gives a shit about the posies? Maybe not so fully functional after all.

“If only sir were here to help. Where is he, by the by?”

“They… they killed him,” I say weakly. I couldn’t muster anything else.

“Mum… these things you’re saying. These… terrible things… I… I believe you need a distraction-”

“God damn it, Codsworth, everything is gone!” I snap. I know I’m flipping out at a robot and it’s so stupid but I just can’t stop myself. “The bombs have fallen. It’s the end of the world. The Vault was a trap, Nate is dead and some fucking animal took Shaun.”

“It’s worse than I thought,” Codsworth continues to ramble, seeming to completely ignore what I just said. “Hmm, hmm… You’re suffering from… hunger-induced paranoia. Not eating properly for 200 years will do that, I’m afraid.”

“Are you going to-” I stop. “Wait, two hundred years? No, that’s not possible. I wasn’t out for that long… Not 200 years.”

It can’t be. If it had been two hundred years, we would have rebuilt. Maybe not the good old USA, but there’d have to be something. A medieval society. Maybe even steam trains. Unless nobody survived. Or nobody here. Was I the last one in Boston-

The robot cuts me off, way too cheery for its own good. “A bit over 210, actually, mum. Give or take a little for the Earth’s rotation and some minor dings to the old chronometer.”

“Codsworth, I’m fine. I need to find Shaun. What can we _do_?” I’m asking a _machine_ what to do. I’m just- overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to describe it.

“We could search the neighbourhood together. Sir and young Shaun may turn up yet,” Codsworth suggested. “Or shall we try the shelter? I haven’t checked on it in a while, perhaps they snuck in.”

“Uh…” I don’t know. I just don’t know. “Hey, how about you check the houses and I’ll, uh, I’ll check the bomb shelter.”

Splitting up is probably dumb, but I need to clear my head. Or something. I don’t know what happened to the world, I don’t know if Shaun’s still alive, I don’t know where to start.

“Survival would be a good place,” I mutter to myself. Hearing the words doesn’t help.

If there’s anything left, it would be in the bomb shelter. It’s not a great bomb shelter. There’s a reason we went for the Vault and not the bomb shelter. Even with that turning out to be a horrible experiment, it might have still been the better option. There’s a good chance we would have been buried, suffocated, or starved down there.

So when I gingerly step down the rickety stairs, tug the creaky door open, and the lights come on, it’s enough of a surprise for me to yelp and jump back.

“What the hell?”

The inside of the bomb shelter is not like I remember it. I can tell the corrugated steel walls are the same, down to the blood stain where Nate cut himself because he didn’t want to wear gloves. But the bare bulbs are gone, with smooth bluish lights in their place, and the bunk bed on the far end has been replaced with what can only be described as a suit of armour in a glass tube.

I step gingerly towards it. It’s a sleek set, much more like the combat armor our army uses (used?) than something like power armor. But it’s very much a _suit_ , not a bunch of pieces that go on top of a uniform. The torso piece is separate from the arm and leg pieces- two each- and the helmet, but they all have joints that look like they click together like power armor. The surface is gray, with a kind of weird satiny sheen, with thin plates over black fabric. The weirdest part is that it’s pretty tightly fitted not only for a woman, but if I’m not crazy, for _me_. “What is this?”

“Voice print identified: Rosalind Williams,” a robotic voice says as the tube parts and slides open.

I yelp and jump back again.

Then I notice the holotape on the table beside me. It has a note with my name on it, in Nate’s handwriting. I don’t hesitate, I grab it and shove it in my Pip-Boy.

“Hi, love. If you’re listening to this, that means I’m gone.” His voice is soft. I sniff back a tear.

“You’re probably wondering what the hell that is, where I got it, and why I left a tape down here.” His voice was all matter of fact all of the sudden, very much the Soldier Nate. “One of my tours in Alaska was actually in Colorado, and I saw some incredible things. Along with some incredibly horrifying things. Even now, I can’t talk about the details, but the long and short of it is that I saw this coming.”

And then he switches it off and he’s just Nate again. “I knew the bombs were going to fall. I knew our family was going to get ripped apart. And it was hell, knowing that, knowing the clock was ticking. But I did the best I could to prepare for it… to prepare you for it.

“By the time I knew, there wasn’t much I could do. Definitely couldn’t stop the war. Couldn’t stop them from taking Shaun. I might have been able to save myself, but it would have _guaranteed_ your death, so there was no way I could ever do.”

“Oh, Nate…” There’s something romantic about that. It’s a shot to the heart that warms it a bit at the same time. The knight in shining armor to the end. But I’m a _lawyer_. He’s a _soldier_ \- was a soldier. Only one of us stood a fucking chance of saving Shaun and it’s not me.

There’s a pause, and then the all-business, Soldier Nate is back. “What you’re looking at is an experimental set of powered combat armor. I left my rifle down here, along with your pistol and all the ammo I could find, but that suit is the centerpiece. It’s a fully self-contained, long-endurance environment that’ll protect you against bullets, lasers, fire, radiation… claws. All of those you’ll encounter in abundance in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.”

“God…”

 “I know you’re scared, but you’re stronger than you think, Rose. Shaun is out there and you’re going to find him. Never stop believing. Never give up.” Back to the Nate I married, one last time. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

What else is there to say?


	3. (Un)prepared For The Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: AR100 is the Service Rifle from New Vegas. You can get that as a mod for Fallout 4.

“This is not bad,” I say as I do a few little exercises. Twist my neck, do a weird little thing with my arms flipping this way and that, hop from foot to foot. The suit doesn’t restrict me much- it doesn’t quite feel like wearing nothing at all, but it’s pretty close. I thought it would be more like the one time I tried Nate’s chestplate on and nearly fell on my ass.

Getting _into_ the suit was a little interesting, though. It was a clearly meant to be done in some super-secret military base by a team of trained technicians, not one kinda-technically-competent lawyer in a basement bomb shelter. I’m pretty proud I figured it out, even though it really wasn’t that complicated. Upper torso piece over my head, step into the lower torso piece, let them lock together. Pull on the pauldron, the the forearm-glove piece, repeat for the other arm. None of the pieces were exactly light, but once the suit was all together there was a little jolt and it all seemed to float away. Powered servos, I guess.

Stripping naked first was a little freaky, though. I know why I had to do it- something something unmentionable waste collection, but I felt a little, well, naked.

I save the helmet for last, holding it in my hands and staring into my dull reflection for a minute. The faceplate is clear, and as far as I can tell, the whole thing is sealed. Which makes sense for surviving a nuclear apocalypse, but I had a bad experience with a gasmask once that I wasn’t eager to repeat.

“Here goes nothing.” I take a deep breath and pull the helmet down over my head.

There’s a pop and a hiss as the neck seals engage, and suddenly I’m breathing air that’s noticeably cleaner that it was au naturel. A heads-up display flashes to life in front of me, super sharp and pleasantly blue. I wonder if it’s always blue or if someone programmed it to my favourite color.

That would be so like Nate. Damn it.

I also wonder what the things in front of me actually mean. The person-shaped person in the lower left is probably some kind of suit status indicator. It’s all blue  I’m pretty sure the thing in the middle is a compass. I turn. It turns. There’s an N. If it’s not a compass, then I’m not a lawyer. The bars on the right, I have no idea.

“I really wish I had a manual.” On cue, a little prompt labeled “help” appears in the top left. I would love to go through it all, but… “Later.”

The prompt disappears.

It’s an awesome piece of technology, and I start to get excited, like I’m ready to take on the world. Then it all comes crashing down. I realize I’m standing in a decaying bomb shelter under what’s left of our home, and I remember that Nate’s gone, Shaun’s disappeared, and the whole world’s ended.

Then I pool my supplies. There’s a tactical vest (I think that’s what it’s called), some pouches and pistol holsters that miraculously were still intact in a locker with the weapons Nate was talking about. I strap on the vest and a belt with waist pouches, idly wondering why the ones at the back have been deliberately removed. I strap a holster onto each leg, slide my pistol into the right one and Nate’s old N99 into the left one. The one I grabbed in the Vault goes into the locker- two pistols is already a lot, I don’t need three. I pack the vest with ammo and stimpacks, pack the pouches with some food, water, and a roll of duct tape, sling Nate’s rifle across my back. It’s a slightly AR100, more common out West, but between the AR100 and the R91, I hate the AR100 less. Finally, I strap the Pip-Boy back on. It barely fits, and complains about the lack of skin contact, but I flick the dial and the error disappears.

I probably look like a soldier. I sure as hell don’t feel like one.

Codsworth is waiting for me when I emerge above ground again. My faceplate darkens to cut down the glare a bit, so I guess there’s that. I’m tense, but that robot is enthusiastic. “Give me the word, mum, and I’ll initiate my search protocols!”

“I thought I…” I begin, before just shaking my head. Is there any point? There’s nothing left of Sanctuary but ruins and graves. It’s all gone.

But Codsworth is already moving. He’s almost cheerful as he calls “Follow me!”

I break into a sprint to follow. It’s surprisingly easy going, easier with the armor than without. I scoff. It’s a cold comfort when you have no idea where you’re going.

Our first stop is the house next door. Before we even make it inside, these disgusting bugs start flinging blobs of guts or mucus or maggots or something at us. One of them lands right on me, splatting against my breastplate. I shriek like a little girl again, draw my pistol and shoot in the general direction of the bugs as the robot methodically hacks them apart.

“Nothing here but a few flies. Wait… my sensors are picking up movement in another house,” Codsworth says, floating away again. I chide myself mentally as I follow. They’re just bugs. I’m wearing body armor. I have a gun, but only so many bullets, and no idea where to get more. What if I ran into something more dangerous? How would I ever find Shaun if I panicked at the first sign of danger.

It shouldn’t be me out here. It should be Nate.

“Picking up hostile life signs,” the robot calls as we approach the Whitfield residence at the end of the cul-de-sac. I could see the bugs inside and I flinch, but force myself to aim carefully. Support foot back, elbow slightly bent, aim, breathe, and pull the trigger. Bring the muzzle down, line up, repeat.

I’ll admit that they were focusing on Codsworth and that made it easier. I’d only done this at the range before. I could be quick, and I could be accurate, but not both at once, and not with targets that squished and splashed and splatted and probably wanted to kill me.

“Miss Rose,” Codsworth calls. His- its voice is mournful. “Your family isn’t here either. They’re… they’re really gone, aren’t they?”

They weren’t here, but… “Shaun’s out there, Codsworth. I need to find him.”

I’m reassuring a robot, which is ridiculous. Even right there I know it’s ridiculous. But it helps to hear the words.

And then it tells me, “What about Concord, mum? Plenty of people there. And last I checked, they only pummeled me with sticks a few times before I had to run back home.”

I can’t help but sigh. Why not _start_ with that. But as lifelike as Codsworth can seem, it’s just a robot, limited to preprogrammed logic and anticipated parameters. It’s a wonder the thing can be even that coherent.

I bite back a sharp retort. “Concord it is, then.”

“Good luck, mum. You’ll find young Shaun. I know you will.”

Even though I know it’s practically prerecorded, Codsworth’s words manage to be reassuring.

 


	4. Onward To Concord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I'll clear up and explain a few things right now:
> 
> Yes, Nate knew from some secret project in Colorado, and Rose got a somewhat OP battlesuit out of the deal. I'm honestly not sure how much I'm going to explore that- it was a handwavey concession to roleplaying for my gameplay run. It's a bit of an experiment, but I think it's gonna work out. If you agree or disagree let me know I guess?
> 
> Rose is pretty dismissive of Codsworth, and you might be worried that she's going to have it in for synths, too. You'd be right, but there's more to that story. It wouldn't make sense for her to think of synthetic life as anything more than tools considering her pre-war background, but perceptions can change, especially in such a strange and chaotic world.
> 
> And yes, the Sole Survivor is just a lawyer in this one. Making her ex-military like Nate is something that works for other fics but I wanted to do something different, with a woman out of time and completely out of her element. It's not a completely useless background- high CHR characters can pull some neat tricks- but she's definitely not a fighter and she's not used to death and destruction. That will change over time, of course...
> 
> Anyway, onward with the story!

The journey starts off not too bad. I’m not a runner, but I don’t sit still much, and I can be pretty fleet on my feet. The suit doesn’t hurt, in fact it seems to help a little. It feels weird, like I’m not moving my own weight, and I guess that’s what’s happening, but it’s not bad.

Well, finding two hand grenades in the mailbox at the edge of the neighborhood was a little disconcerting. And the rotting corpse just outside-

I shriek when I see him. He’s face-down, dried blood under him and bugs buzzing around. He’s still recognizable as human being, with deep red hair and rough, patched-up clothes. Beside him is a dead… thing. It looks like a dog, but pink, hairless, and all skin and bones and a tire iron in its side. Pretty obvious what happened.

Is this the world now?

I’m about to walk away when I spot the gun under the man’s left hand. I’m pretty sure it’s a gun. It’s crude, made of plumbing pipes, bent bits of metal, and a random piece of wood. If he has a gun, he probably has ammo. I have a few hundred bullets, but I don’t know how common they are.

“Oh god, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I mutter to myself, closing my eyes as I kneel down, reach through the cloud of bugs, and start feeling up the dead guy. “Oh, eww…”

My gloved hand hits something soft, it goes squish, and it’s now _inside the dead guy_. I shriek again and yank my arm back, flinging gross slime everywhere. I’m glad I can’t smell anything but a faint whiff of plastic, because if I could, I’m sure there would be both shrieking and puking.

I try to take deep breaths which are more like shallow pants, wiping my glove and bracer on the only cloth in sight, which is of course the _dead guy_. “Okay, I can do this.”

This time, I roll him over and force myself to keep my eyes open. The first thing I spot is the festering, gaping hole in his chest. I retch but manage to keep my two-hundred-year-old (allegedly) breakfast down. The second thing I spot is the bumps in his coat pockets. After flipping them open, I find two clips of bullets- 21 total, I count them- and two stimpacks.

I tell myself, hey, that wasn’t so hard. But I just robbed a dead man. That’s so many kinds of wrong. Am I that desperate already? I don’t know what scares me more, that I just did it or that it might not be that unusual. There wasn’t a lot of postapocalyptic literature in the preapocalyptic world, but I’d read some classics and they wove tails of cannibal tribes and ruthless thieves.

But there are people living in Concord, so things can’t be that bad. I pocket the purloined items and set off toward the town.

* * * * *

I almost shoot the dog.

I’d never, ever even thought of shooting a dog before. I love dogs! But I just saw a dead guy beside a gross dog-thing, and honestly anything moving is enough to freak me out completely at this point. I was just approaching the Red Rocket station down the road, where we’d go to get Nuka-Colas and top up the coolant on our car. Like everything else, it’s ruined, all faded and rusty, windows long gone, walls bashed up.

The dog runs at me, I draw my pistol, and my finger’s on the trigger when I hesitate. He stops in front of me and heels.

It’s a dog, a healthy, well-fed looking German Shepherd. He’s not going to bite my face off. Get it together, Rose.

“Hey, boy. What are you doing out here all by yourself?” I don’t know if this is more or less crazy than talking to the robot. At least the robot can kind of respond.

This guy just barks at me.

I can’t help myself. I reach down and give him a scratch on the neck. Call it an apology for almost putting a bullet in him.

“You lose your owner, buddy?” The words sound pretty silly. He doesn’t look wild, but I don’t see a collar. Do they have collars, still? He’s not a food dog, is he?

He whimpers and starts trundling down the road, toward Concord. I can’t help but laugh as I follow, “Okay then, let’s stick together.”

* * * * *

Let’s add another kind of giant bugs to the list of scary shitty things in the wasteland that I don't like.

It’s just on the edge of Concord when I see a pair of them. They look kind of like mosquitoes, except the size of my arm. They’re feeding on the rotting, bloody, super gross carcass of a cow but as soon as they see us, they stop and start buzzing toward us.

I try to muffle my scream with my left hand, which doesn’t really work with the faceplate in the way. With my right, I yank out my pistol and open fire. Most of my shots go wide, but one of them clips one of the bugs’ wings, sending it to the ground. I force myself to aim at the second, even as it comes alarmingly close, and put two out of three into its body.

Meanwhile, the dog’s gone for the downed bug and rips it apart with teeth and paws.

“Oh, don’t do that, boy, that’s gross,” I groan. The thought occurs to me that bugs like those are his diet. I’d rather not think about that. “I hope _I_ don’t have to eat bugs.”

A menu comes up on my HUD, offering me a choice of nutrient paste or water. I’m not sure if I trust the nutrient paste, but the excitement and exertion has made me thirsty. “How do I select water? How do I drink in this thing?”

I hear a beep, there’s an indicator that water is selected and an arrow pointing down in front of my mouth. I can just barely see a tube down there at the edge of my vision. I experiment a little and find if I manipulate my jaw just right, I can get my lips around the tube. Cool, clean water flows into my mouth when I suck on it. I probably drink a bottle’s worth, not realizing how thirsty I was.

That’s handy. I already saw the urine collecting thing when I put on the suit, so I’m not worried about what happens after the water goes through me. But if it’s a self-contained, long-endurance suit, that means it probably recycles water…

No eating bugs, but I _am_ going to be drinking my own pee. Yuck.

The dog barks at me, and I realize I’ve been standing in one spot like an idiot for the past few minutes. I shake my head and start heading for the heart of Concord.

I find myself walking down a depressingly junky street lined with sad, decrepit houses. There’s still some patriotic bunting and banners hanging, not completely faded. That’s a knock against the two-hundred-years theory, which is reassuring, but the wrecked cars and broken lamp posts aren’t.

Halfway down, I hear gunfire. Coming from right where I’m going. Normally I’d run away from gunfire. But maybe Shaun’s kidnappers were still there, and they’d run into someone with a sense of morality.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I unsling Nate’s rifle. It feels lighter in my hands than I remember, but reassuring nonetheless.

I apply what little I remember about tactics from what Nate told me. Stay low, move quickly but surely. Use cover where you can. I crouch-dart behind a busted car and carefully peek above it.

There’s a bunch of people on the street ahead of me, dressed in rags and bits of makeshift armor. They have guns, though I have no idea what kind. There’s a guy on the balcony of the museum- I recognize the building at the end of the street as the museum, it’s pretty distinctive- and they’re shooting at each other.

The guy on the balcony isn’t the guy who took Shaun, I can tell pretty clearly. The people shooting at him don’t look like the people who took Shaun. I don’t see the monster, and as much as I hate to say it, he had nicer clothes. But...

Probably not the bastards I’m looking for, but who knows? I have no idea who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, or if that’s even such a thing anymore.

I have a gun and I kind of know how to use it. But who should I shoot at? Should I wave hello? Run away?

Damn it, it should have been Nate.


	5. Run Or Fight (Preferably Run)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose isn't totally useless with a gun. I figure she's had some range time with Nate, maybe as a romantic rendezvous. I've seen this used as a handwave before for a female Sole Survivor, but I'm trying to be realistic about it here. So Rose can hit what she's shooting at, as long as she doesn't panic, which is actually fairly often because she's not used to the pressure at all.
> 
> She also occasionally does stupid things, because she's used to a very different world and isn't hardened by military experience like Nate.

“Hi, excuse me, um…”

As soon as the words come out of my mouth, the man comes running at me with a pool cue. Pure murderous intent is written in his eyes.

Rose, you idiot.

I’m pretty sure I just peed myself. I quickly raise Nate’s rifle, point it in the general direction of my assailant, and pull the trigger. It goes click.

Rose, you _fucking_ idiot.

I’m not totally clueless. I manage to grip the charging handle on the second try and rack it back. I’m backpedaling, but he’s almost on top of me and I know I’m going to trip any second. I’m holding the gun totally wrong, in one hand and aiming with my wrist, but I pull the trigger anyway. It barks sharply, recoil lighter than I remember but still barely controllable with the awful grip I have.

The first shots go wild, but I get a few hits. I know it’s an illusion, but I swear I can feel the blood splatter onto me as he goes crashing to the ground.

I just killed a man, but I have no time to think about it. His friends haven’t noticed me, but I know it’s only a matter of time before they do.

I crouch, raise the rifle to my shoulder, and steady myself. Just like the range, I tell myself. Just pretend they’re paper targets, I tell myself. As I begin to aim, little red diamonds pop up above the bad guys on my HUD.

Because that’s something that totally happened at the range.

I line up the sights, ignoring the fact that the ten ring is someone’s head, and pull the trigger. It’s a perfect shot, probably the best one I’ve ever taken, and he drops to the ground.

That also completely, one hundred percent, matches my range experience.

I switch to his friend, the last bad guy. I could have sworn there were more, but there’s shooting from the museum with some kind of laser rifle so maybe they got some. This time, the shot isn’t perfect, catching them in the shoulder. I follow up with two more shots, a triple tap like I’m in the army.

I just killed three men.

Slowly, I stand and amble my way toward the museum. I can’t help but look at the bodies as I walk past them, and a wave of despair washes through me.

Was it really me or them? Was it all a misunderstanding? What if those guys weren’t on the same side? What if they thought I was the bad guy, and they were only defending themselves? What were their lives like before I-

“Hey, up here! On the balcony!” a voice calls, snapping me back to cold hard reality. It’s the man who was shooting at the people down here, dressed in a tan duster and holding some kind of hacked-up laser rifle. I can tell he’s desperate, and not _man I’d really like another Nuka-Cola_ desperate but _you’re our last hope and if you don’t help us we’re all going to die_ desperate. “I’ve got a group of settlers inside! The raiders are almost through the door! Grab that laser musket and help us! Please!”

This isn’t my fight. I don’t want to get into this. I don’t want to kill more people. But I can’t bring myself to say no and I can’t bring myself to walk away.

“Okay, hold on, I’m coming! I’m not a soldier, but I’ll do my best!” I shout. I don’t know if the man heard me- he’s already gone inside.

I grab the “laser musket” he’s talking about, along with the three fusion cells sitting on the ground beside it. I try not to think of the man lying in a pool of his own blood that it once belonged to.

One look at that weapon and I decide that there's no way I'm using it. It really is just a hacked-up laser rifle, with new optics and some kind of crank-capacitor-thing mounted on a board. I don’t want it blowing up in my face, so I sling it on my left shoulder with the full intent of giving it to the guy on the balcony to do something with.

I sling the rifle, too, and draw my pistol again. I don’t know how well I’m going to be able to swing a long gun around in there- I remember the museum had some tight hallways, but maybe it’s changed since then. I take a deep breath, turn the doorknob with my off hand, and creep in as quietly as I can.

As soon as I make it inside, I’m being shot at. The entrance is open to the floor above, and one of the raiders opens fire from the gallery with his crude rifle.

There’s no cover. I drop as low as I can and pray that my armor really is as bulletproof as Nate said. The little body-shaped indicator in the corner of my vision flashes red but I don’t think about it, too focused on shooting back. I barely even realize I’m screaming as I keep squeezing the trigger, sending half a dozen rounds downrange before the man drops.

I know there are more raiders around because I can still hear gunfire and laser fire, but I take a brief moment to check myself over and take stock of my surroundings. The indicator is back to blue, so I guess it was telling me I was being hit, and that there’s no lasting damage. I don’t feel hurt, but I glance down and check myself over. I run a finger over my breastplate and find a little dent, so I guess it’s done its job.

The museum looks much like I remember, but understandably with years of age. The glass roof is gone, open to the sky above. Some of the walls and galleries on the second and third stories have collapsed, but the entrance gate and the main staircase behind it look okay. The patriotic “Museum Of Freedom” mural is faded, but still recognizable.

It’s a bit comforting and a bit unsettling, like everything in this crazy new world. But I don’t have time to think about it too much. I reload, keeping the old magazine, and duck into a side passage.

“No more British occupation!” a recorded voice shouts from above. I recognize that- this is the Revolutionary War exhibit, and the next room is full of mannequins, almost in the exact places I remember them.

And then one of them blasts me in the chest.

I manage to quickly duck back behind the doorway. I hyperventilate and nearly panic, thinking I'm going to drop dead any second. Reluctantly, I peek down. My pockets have some holes in them now, and there are few new dents in my armor, but no blood. I'm still okay.

I’m still okay. I just took a shotgun blast, and I’m still okay. Deep breaths, Rose.

I’m not eager to repeat the experience. Gingerly, I peek around the corner, pistol up and as little body exposed as possible. At this range, even I can hit my target easily, and he goes down hard.

The dog, who apparently is still following me, sniffs the corpse, then circles the room and starts following me again.

I probably should be dead. I have to keep moving.

“Have your tea back, you jackanapes!” I think the next room was the Boston Tea Party, but now it’s just a mess of crates, rubble, and dirt. I reload my pistol again as I go. I think I have three full clips left, plus some half-empty ones and some loose rounds.

I’m not a soldier. I shouldn’t be doing this. But whether I like it or not, the people up there are relying on me.

I might have spoke too soon about the main staircase. It’s still okay, mostly, but the floor in front of it is caved in, revealing the basement underneath. There’s a fusion generator right under the entrance gate, which is something I’d never noticed before.

I can see one of the raiders standing on the top floor, shooting at someone toward the front of the museum. The settlers. I don’t hesitate, and make three of the best shots I’ve ever made with this pistol. He’s down and I keep moving.

Maybe Nate was right. Maybe I do better under pressure than I realize.

Up the stairs, to the right. I head down into one of the side passages, toward one of the exhibits. It’s the war memorial, I think, with the mural of soldiers and the battleship that Nate liked so much. I’m glad I switched out to the pistol, because there’s no way I could use that big rifle in here. Even on my back, it’s banging against the wall.

That might be how the two raiders figured out I was coming.

The first one charges at me with a pool cue, but this time I’m ready. I aim quickly, and my accuracy isn’t great, but he goes down. Before I can get the other guy, my canine companion leaps at him, and tears his throat out with a splash of blood.

I turn away and notice an ammo can on the floor. There are a few bullets in it and I pocket them, then keep moving. I can still hear shooting from the floors above, and I just hope I’m not too late.

I’m wrong. Nate was wrong. He should be here, playing the hero.

I dash recklessly up the stairs. It works out about as well as one might think, and I literally run into a raider with a pool cue. I’m far from a martial artist, so when he swings, it connects perfectly with my torso.

I scream and kick wildly at him. He goes flying into the far wall with an audible crunch. I shoot at him again, making sure he’s dead. Even as I do it, part of me is screaming to stop, but another part is reminding me what’s going to happen if he gets up.

Something hits me in the shoulder and I turn toward it. Another raider stands in the doorway, shooting at me with his junk gun. Our eyes lock, and I can see the anger, the hate, and worse, the fear and desperation in his face.

“I’m sorry.” And I really am. Even as I’m literally being shot, I struggle to bring up my own weapon and put one, two, three bullets into his chest.

And then, all is silent.


	6. A (Terrible) Plan

The man from the balcony comes out from behind a doorway, and I amble numbly toward him. I feel sick. If I’m too late for those settlers, or worse, if there aren’t any settlers and it’s all some goddamn trick, then I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself. I just killed a bunch of people, and it wasn’t me or them- I could have just run. If I really did this to save people, that would be about the only thing that could come close to making this worth it.

My friends told me I had a hell of a poker face, and I quickly put it on and offer a simple, “Hello.”

“Man, I don’t know who you are, but your timing’s impeccable,” the man greeted. He was tense, but a lot less desperate now. “Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen.”

That threw me for a loop, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Minutemen? So now I’m travelling _backwards_ in time?”

“ _Protect the people at a minute’s notice_. That was the idea. So I joined up, wanted to make a difference. And I did, but… things fell apart. Now it looks like I’m the last Minuteman left standing.” I guess his stress response is to tell me his whole life story. I try to focus on his words and not drift back to what I’d just done.

I try to rub my temples, which ends up an awkward palm-mash into my faceplate. “Ugh. The world’s changed so much. None of this makes sense!”

“You all right?” Preston asks, irritated. I want to shout that I’m not, but again I force my magical lawyer poker face back on. “Listen. We need your help. And then maybe we can help you, huh? What brought you out here?”

I’d been hoping for just help when I came to Concord, but _I’ll help you if you help me_ is probably the best I’ve gotten so far, and maybe the best I’d get if what just happened was any indication. “I’m looking for some help finding a missing person.”

“Used to have a few good trackers in this group. Not many now,” the self-proclaimed Minuteman muses melancholically. “A month ago, there were 20 of us. Yesterday there were 8. First it was the ghouls in Lexington and now this mess.”

“Ghouls?” There aren’t actual ghosts around, are there? Or is that just another name for raiders?

“Wow, you really aren’t from here, are you?” He shakes his head, but patiently explains, “Ghouls are… irradiated people. Most are just like you and me. They look pretty messed up, and live for a long time, but they’re still just people. The ones I’m talking about are different. The radiation’s rotted their brains. Made them feral. They’ll rip you apart, just as soon as look at you.”

I try and fail to not shudder. It sounds like pure bullshit, an old wife’s tale, but he sounded genuine and after seeing giant bugs for real, it’s not even that farfetched. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah,” Preston agrees. “Anyway, we figured Concord would be a safe place to settle. Those raiders proved us wrong. But, well, we do have one idea.”

“Alright, let’s hear it.”

Preston glances over to man in overalls hammering away at a computer terminal. “Sturges, tell her.”

“There’s a crashed vertibird up on the roof. Old school, pre-war, you might have seen it.” Sturges explains. He has a country kind of accent, but I can’t place it. “Well, looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We’re talking a full suit of cherry T-45 Power Armor. Military issue.”

He glances at me, scanning me up and down, and I think he’s checking me out before I remember what I’m wearing and realize that he’s probably more curious about that than me. “Now I don’t know how it compares to that getup you’re wearing, but inside that baby, super is the new normal. You’ll be stronger, tougher, resistant to rads, and… get the suit, you can rip the minigun right off the Vertibird. Do that, and those raiders get an express ticket to Hell. You dig?”

I definitely do not dig. The man seems disturbingly excited by the concept, but it’s about the last thing I want to do. I say, as neutral as I can. “Huh. Could work.”

“It’ll work. Provided we can reactivate the suit. It’s totally out of juice, probably has been for a hundred years-”

“Wait, wait,” I interrupt. “It’s been a _hundred years_ since the war?”

“More like two hundred, give or take,” Preston answers. He sounds worried, although maybe more about his choice of designated hero than my actual well-being, when he asks, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Sorry, it’s just been kind of a bad day for me,” I dismiss nonchalantly with the understatement of the year… century… whatever. _Two hundred years_? Codsworth wasn’t malfunctioning?

“What you’ll need is an old pre-war F.C., a standardized fusion core,” the Minuteman explains, seemingly satisfied for the moment. “Your high-grade, long-term nuclear battery. Used by the military and some companies, way back when. And we know right where to find one.”

Sturges takes over, “But we can’t get to the damn thing. It's down in the basement, locked behind a security gate. Look, I fix stuff. I tinker. Bypassing security ain't exactly my forte. You could give it a shot.”

“Can’t be too hard. I’ll see what I can do.” I’m not a thief, either, but I remember there was a terminal next to the gate, and I’m pretty handy with computers. I tinkered with them quite a bit in my college days, had some fun, but ended up going into law instead.

“Well, all right,” Preston says hopefully. “Maybe our luck’s finally turning around. Once you jack the core into the Power Armor and grab that minigun, those raiders’ll know they picked the wrong fight! Good luck.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in me, Mister Garvey,” I tell him honestly. “I’m going to try my best, but I’m not a soldier. I’ve never killed anyone before today, and I hate doing it, raider or ghoul or whatever.”

“Hey,” he says quietly, stepping toward me. “I know this is sudden. I know you don’t want be doing this. But we’re at the end of our rope. You’re all we’ve got.”

“I’m not lying when I say I really want to help you. I don’t do this shooting fighting stuff, but I couldn’t bring myself to run away. So I’m all in,” I try to assure him. I speak softly, because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want the others to hear this. I repeat, “I’ll do what I can.”

“You can do this, and you will,” he assures me back. I know it’s more than a little fake, but it helps anyway. “I don’t know how, but I have a good feeling.”

“Hey, kid,” a voice calls. An old woman is sitting on a worn sofa, and she pats the spot beside her. “Dogmeat sure did find us some help. Just look at ya.”

 _Don’t let the suit fool you, I don’t actually know what I’m doing_ , I almost say. Instead, I ask, “He’s your dog?”

“Oh, he ain’t my dog. No sir. Dogmeat, he’s what you’d call his own man,” she explains, half rambling. “You can’t own a free spirit like that. But he chooses his friends, and sticks with ‘em. He’ll stay by you now. I saw it.”

Saw it? I’m curious about what she means, but a little freaked out, and the clock is ticking. “Well, okay then. I should get moving before those raiders come back.”

She nods. “That’s all right. I need to rest now. And you have a job to do.”

* * * * *

I was right about the terminal. It’s hooked to the security gate, and anyone with the right permissions could pop it right open. Better yet, it’s a standard RobCo Termlink, complete with the oh-so-easily-exploited login code and user-accessible debugger. I hit the key combination- CTRL-SHIFT-D, I’ll never forget that shortcut- and open it up.

I’ve still got it. I scroll through the addresses until I have a screen full of what looks like random strings and other junk. This is where the password handling code stores its data, and most of those strings are previous password attempts, meaning one of them is almost certainly the actual password. The other junk data isn’t necessarily junk, either. Some of the sequences are pointers to functions that do fun things like reset the login attempt counter or clear the string buffers of previous failed password attempts.

Thank RobCo for a deeply flawed and easily exploitable attempt at obfuscation.

I wouldn’t need those today, not with a five-character password. I attach a watch to a short int eight bytes before the first string, which indicates the number of correct characters of the last attempted password. Right now, of course, it’s at -1, signalling that none has been tried. I could also attach one ten bytes back, which would give me the number of login attempts remaining, but I know that’s four and I do know how to count.

Surely, someone at RobCo realized how bad this system was? There had to be a better way of comparing passwords than doing it with a character-by-character string comparison. And maybe some way to prevent any random user from viewing the entire contents of memory, too.

Maybe I _should_ have gone into computing.

The strings on the screen are HAREM, ALIKE, MARCH, AGILE, LANDS, PRODS, HELPS, STOLE, CLUES, CACHE, TABLE, and BONUS.

I try HAREM first. The watch changes to 1. I try MARCH. Still 1. That’s not helpful.

Wow, I am rusty. It _has_ been a few years. I notice a curly brace, count out it’s address, and force a call with the debugger. There, attempts reset.

CACHE, 2. That’s a little more helpful. The password almost certainly has an A at index 1, and maybe an E at 4.

I try TABLE, and that gets me root access. Tabbing out of the debugger brings me back to the main menu, but now with another option: [Unlock Security Gate]. I hammer that enter button and hear the gate click open beside me.

The fusion generator has a much simpler control scheme- a giant light-up button labelled EJECT. I push it, it turns green, I grab the fusion core and we are good to go.

I’m still terrified, but maybe, just maybe, this will work.

 


	7. Square Peg, Round Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working with the existing dialogue can be hard. The Sole Survivor seems to know things they shouldn't, or at least accept seemingly impossible facts at face value. I've added a few things in- some extra lines for Preston, a small but significant change for Mama Murphy. Of course there will be some dialogue that goes completely differently, but I'm worried that it might not fit very well because I wrote it myself?
> 
> We'll see how it goes.
> 
> The thing with the minigun is a bit of an excuse, considering the thing still works fine, but I'll sheepishly admit that during the actual run I cheated- bumped up STR, grabbed the minigun, reset it- because I really wanted the minigun.

It’s not going to work.

There’s a Vertibird crashed on the roof, just like Sturges said, and a suit of T-45 Power Armor sitting nicely in front of it, also just like Sturges said. The raiders are back and in greater numbers, and bullets whiz by as I stand there like an idiot and try to figure out what to do.

I don’t know why Preston wanted _me_ to do this instead of him. I think he somehow got the mistaken impression I had some training with Power Armor, and he would be sadly mistaken. I tried out a suit during a family day on the base once, and managed to walk down a flat road without _completely_ embarrassing myself. But as the surprisingly friendly drill sergeant told me at the time, walking in Power Armor is easy enough, but fighting in it is a whole ‘nother ballgame.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because of the whole square peg round hole situation.

You’re supposed to wear a special undersuit with Power Armor. I remember that, because the one I borrowed didn’t fit right and had someone else’s name on it. I think you don’t technically need the undersuit, but it’s probably not a good idea to go without it. I could be completely wrong, though.

Like I said, _one time on a family day_.

You’re definitely not supposed to wear another suit of armor underneath. When I tried to get my head through the neck hole, it just wouldn’t go through. With my helmet on, it’s not physically possible.

If I take my helmet off, maybe that would work? I try stepping into the power armor again, leaning back in a weird way to see if I can get my body into the power armor. And that’s a nope, because my pauldrons are just a little bit too big.

So I weigh my options. I’m really not feeling like stripping down on a roof while being shot at, nor stepping into something with as many pinchy metal bits as power armor while stark naked.

Another bullet zips by, reminding me that I’m standing completely exposed. Yeah, so stripping naked is an even worse idea. I drop down behind the Vertibird, then peek above it again. We’re running out of time. The raiders are getting more aggressive, and getting a lot closer to the building. Sporadic laser fire isn’t doing much to hold them off- they know we’re outnumbered.

Maybe I don’t _need_ the Power Armor. I took down a bunch of raiders before, although I had the element of surprise, and I still ended up taking a few hits. But I did walk away from those hits without getting hurt. It might not be Power Armor, but my armor is supposed to be state-of-the-art.

I slink over and examine the Power Armor again, more specifically the chestplate. It’s so thick that when I splay my hand out, I still can’t wrap my fingers around it. I do the same test with the chestplate I’m wearing. It’s just a hair thicker than my thumb. And it’s not even a thick thumb. I have slim, elegant lady fingers- okay, they’re thin, anyway.

I’m not all that confident in the relative protective qualities of my suit.

“Maybe I can go back to Preston and we can come up with another plan that doesn’t involve me jumping into hell,” I mutter to myself. No, no time for that. “Okay, maybe I could grab a piece of Vertibird and use it as a shield- oh hell no, that’s stupid.”

My HUD blinks. It asks me if I want to raise shields.

“I have shields? Like, sci-fi, personal shield, shields?” I can’t help but scream at my suit. “Yes, I would like shields up, I would have liked shields half an hour ago!”

I hear a quiet hum, and a flash of blue light envelops me before disappearing. Another indicator appears in the lower left corner of my vision, a little bar that quickly zips from empty to full.

I’m still not looking forward to doing this, but I have to admit, that is pretty cool. I can’t think of a single scenario where I’d actually be able to enjoy it in any way, but in an abstract way, it’s pretty neat that we had this technology and _why did we never use it?_

That’s a thought for another day.

“Okay, I really hope these do what I think,” I say. “Are these the kind of shields that stop bullets?”

My suit’s smart but not that smart interface immediately fills my vision with a giant page of information I don’t have time to read.

“I don’t need the whole manual! Dismiss! Dismiss!” I snap, waving my arm even though I’m pretty sure that isn’t doing anything at all.

I think I really need the Power Armor to rip the minigun off like Sturges suggested, but I give it an experimental tug anyway. I let out a squeak of surprise when the mount gives way in a puff of rust. It’s heavy, but manageable with my armor helping me, except when I try to regain my balance I step through a rusty part of the Vertibird and go tumbling out the side, going crashing to the ground on top of the big gun.

Not exactly an action hero entrance.

It’s still enough to give the raiders a shock, and they pause just long enough for me to scramble to my feet and get the huge, awkward gun aimed toward them. Like a swarm of angry bees, gunfire peppers my shields, and I silently pray they hold as I squeeze the trigger.

Whoever built this thing sure knew how to do it. After sitting around for two hundred years, the barrels only hesitate briefly before they spin up and start kicking out a hellstorm of lead, smoke, and general destruction. And I realize right away why you always see big guys with Power Armor wielding these things. It’s loud as hell and kicks like a mule. I don’t think Nate could do it without help, and I’m pretty sure that if I tried without this spiffy suit, the recoil would literally rip my arms off.

The death machine tears through the raiders. Again, literally. I sweep it slowly across them, and even with the brilliant muzzle flash obscuring my vision, I can see one raider fall to the ground in two pieces and the lady next to him explode in a shower of gore. Within seconds, the street is clear.

I’m running on adrenaline, and I shift my attention to the raiders who’ve taken cover in the houses to the side of the street. My first burst misses, but I adjust my aim- the tracers, I think they’re called, help- into what used to be a store and hold down the trigger. The bullets turn the front of the store to splinters and shred the two gunmen inside. There’s one on the top floor, and I cut a hole through the balcony and the wall with a stream of bullets to take him down.

On the other side of the street, two raiders keep firing from the upper level. I raise the minigun toward them- a sluggish, awkward movement- and sweep the balconies. One of the support posts gives way and the whole thing collapses. I’m pretty sure I got them, but if not, the rubble did.

The last raider drops his gun and runs for the end of the street. I point my giant cannon of destruction at him and almost pull the trigger before I realize what I’m about to do. Instead, I take it off and reach for what I hope is the safety switch.

Then, suddenly, a giant, hideous, deadly-looking lizard _thing_ explodes out of a sewer grate, sending him flying through the air. It roars a terrifying roar before charging toward me.

“Oh, _fuck_.”

It’s fight or flight, and for some reason I decide to fight. I plant my feet, brace my arms, and hold down the trigger, sending a solid stream of bullets into the beast. It’s clearly doing damage, bullets ripping off chunks of flesh, but to my horror, the monster doesn’t stop.

“Shit, shit, shit!” And I think I do. Shit, I mean. Give me a break, this thing is a demon spawn. I bolt to the side, which is harder than it sounds carrying around the big heavy not-very-mini gun. The monster misses in his charge, but turns towards me, baring its huge teeth and giant claws. I keep running, turning a semicircle and finding myself heading down the street toward where it came from.

I hope there aren’t more of those things under the street.

There’s a car in front of me, right in the way. There’s no way I can jump it- I’m neither gymnast nor acrobat- but I try anyway, hoping I can do some kind of jump-slide over the hood. I put on an extra bust of speed and kick off.

And then, suddenly, I’m flying through the air.

“Oh Jesus God no!” I shriek as the ground comes up fast below me. I land in a heap, slamming into the hard concrete and sliding across it shoulder-first. My giant gun bounces a few times and comes to a stop a few yards away.

Maybe it’s just the adrenaline, but the landing doesn’t actually hurt. I’m still dazed and disoriented, but I know that monster is going to come for me any second. I roll-crawl-scramble for the minigun, managing to get it up and pointed down the street in a kind of half-crouch.

The barrels are glowing white hot, but I pull the trigger again and hold it down anyway. I manage to get a few dozen good hits on the beast before it scrambles behind a ruined truck. I keep my finger held down anyway, hoping that the bullets will rip through the rusted-out hulk, but after one final spurt the gun clicks empty and starts winding down.

“You’ve got to be-”

And then the truck explodes.

I’ve heard about vehicle explosions before. Even did a case study on a related suit in law school. But it was still a hell of a shock. I guess the reactor went off, because the vehicle went up in an honest-to-God nuclear mushroom cloud, spraying flaming, molten metal across the entire street. There isn’t much left of the truck, and, fortunately for me, not much left of the beast either.

Just like that, the adrenaline is gone. I drop the useless minigun and collapse into that tired, just-ran-a-marathon grabbing my knees pose. I’m breathing super hard and I’m not sure how I’m still going at all.

“Water,” I stammer, and the suit obliges. I bite the tube and suck greedily. I don’t even care that it’s probably my pee from earlier, it tastes like the best water ever, imported from an artesian well in Fiji.

That was insane. The adrenaline rush was… something. I don’t know if it was good or bad, and I know I don’t want to do it again, but I can understand why people seek it out. But I just ripped a bunch of people apart with a minigun, then fought for my life against a creature that could only have come from Hell. I don’t know how long I can keep going. If this is what the future is like, then it’s just way out there crazy, and I don’t understand how anyone is supposed to live their lives.

Okay, breather over. Gonna kill yourself with the introspection. I shout, “It’s safe, guys. You can come out now.”

One by one, the settlers emerge from the building. Preston is first, still wielding the weird laser-rifle-hack-thing. Sturges is next, then the old lady I talked to, and finally a really distraught looking man and woman.

“That was a pretty amazing display,” Preston tells me, more than a little awe in his voice. “I’m just glad you’re on our side.”

 _I got lucky_. I give as neutral a response as I can manage. “The feeling’s mutual, Preston.”

What the the hell am I even saying?

“You can never have too many friends. Not in the Commonwealth.” So, is the whole state of Massachusetts this bad? “Listen, when we first met, you asked about the Minutemen. One thing you should know about us, we help out our friends. So here. For everything you’ve done, thank you.”

He reaches into one of his pouches and hands me a bag with some fusion cells in it, along with-

I laugh. “Bottle caps? Is this your collection?”

“Wow. So you don’t know about ghouls, the war, or bottle caps?” He shakes his head. “That’s what passes for money these days around here. A can of water goes for about forty caps, maybe thirty if you haggle. There should be about a hundred in that bag.”

“Okay. Thank you.” I nod, trying to wrap my head around the idea of bottle caps being used as money. “What happens now?”

“For the longest time, Mama Murphy’s had a vision of a place called _Sanctuary_. Some old neighborhood, but one we can make new again.”

Wait.

No way.

“See, that’s funny,” I tell them. “I used to live in a neighborhood called Sanctuary Hills. It’s just a few hours north of here.”

“What? It’s real?” the black-haired, distraught woman asks, surprised.

“I used to live there,” I repeat. “There’s not much left- really not much left- but some of the buildings are still standing. If you need shelter, it’s better than nothing.”

“Well, Sanctuary it is,” Sturges says enthusiastically. “Let’s just hope it lives up to its name.”

“Are you coming with us?” Preston asks. “I could really use your help.”

I turn back to face him. “What would I need to do?”

The old woman- Mama Murphy?- answers. Well, sort of. She tells me, “You’d need to stay strong. Like you been. ‘Cause there’s more to your destiny. I’ve seen it. And I know your pain.”

“My _destiny_? What do you mean?”

Again, she doesn’t give me a straight answer. “You’re a woman out of time. Out of hope. But all is not lost. I can feel your son’s energy. He’s alive.”

I feel a surge of hope, but quickly quash it. She “feels me son’s energy”. I’ve met fortune tellers before, and the only thing I’m surprised about is that there’s room for hucksters like her after the end.

Then again, with such a bleak world, maybe people _need_ to be told that kind of thing to have any hope at all.

“Where is my son?” I ask. On the off chance she’s real, great, I know where to look. If in the infinitely more likely chance she isn’t, this will trip her up.

“Oh I wish I knew, kid. I really do. But it’s not like I can see Shaun. I can just… feel his life force, his energy. He’s out there.” She pauses. “And even I don’t need the sight to tell you where you should start lookin’. The great, green jewel of the Commonwealth. Diamond City. The biggest settlement around.”

I thank her politely, because there’s no point offending the settlers who clearly respect her at least grudgingly. And she did give me a useful piece of information. Diamond City, a big settlement. Fortune-telling bullshit aside, that I can use.

It’s only after the conversation, after we’re back on the road, when I realize I never told the old woman my son’s name.


	8. It's Not A Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say about this one. It's slow going, but I'm slowly catching up. I'm trying to change the dialogue around a bit, because frankly some of it doesn't make sense at all, but that won't really be a big deal for another few chapters.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

When I first wake up, I think it’s all been a nightmare. The end of the world never happened. I’m lying comfortably in my bed, sun streams through the window on a warm fall day, Nate is right beside me and Shaun is asleep in his crib the room over.

As soon as I open my eyes, the illusion is shattered. I’m actually lying on the floor, on top of a mattress beside the dirty, burned couch, and it’s cloudy and dark outside. I’m still wearing the suit, but I took the helmet off and I can smell something burning outside. I run a hand through my hair- filthy and matted, then go looking for my guns only to realize my pistols are still strapped to my thighs and Nate’s rifle is an arm’s reach away.

The world is gone, Hell in its place.

I slept pretty well, all things considered. I guess the best medicine for insomnia is exhaustion, because I remember crashing pretty much right after getting back home and then nothing after. The fight with the monster- I think Preston called it a Deathclaw, which seems appropriate- really took it out of me. Bad enough that I didn’t dwell on events and just passed out instead.

But now, after sleeping on it, everything hits me all at once.

We’re back in Sanctuary, but we is me and some strangers I just met, not the neighbors who moved into the brand new neighborhood the same time we did. The ruined houses are shelter, but it used to be home. I’m my living room, but the holotape player is wrecked, the TV’s worse, Nate’s flag is smashed, and there’s nobody else around. Nate’s dead, his frozen corpse still in that damnable Vault. Shaun’s gone and I’m his only hope. There’s blood on my hands, and I’m terrified there’s going to be more-

“Good morning, miss Rose!” I whip around, drawing my pistol and nearly putting a bullet in the interloper.

“Damn it, Codsworth!” I quickly take my finger off the trigger and holster it again. “Sorry. I’m just really jumpy. Don’t… don’t do that.”

“Of course, miss Rose,” the robot replies as politely as ever. “I was just going to inform you that those people outside have prepared breakfast. It does not look terribly appealing, but they assure me it is quite good.”

It’s probably charred rat or something. Nonetheless, I thank Codsworth and half-walk, half-stumble out of the house into the ruins of Sanctuary Hills.

The morning becomes a twisted facsimile of normal. The settlers are sitting around a patio table, burnt and dirty and broken, but still recognizable. Sturges offers me a charred animal on a stick that looks suspiciously like a squirrel. I almost push it away before I realize how hungry I am, and gingerly take it instead. It tastes like game and burning, but I scarf it down anyway.

We don’t talk over breakfast, not much, anyway. There’s a few mutterings about what to do next, and I get directions to Diamond City- which seems to be at or near Fenway Park- but it’s all just pragmatic, matter-of-fact statements. Nobody is really in the mood to pour their heart out. The couple- I’m pretty sure they’re a couple- I can tell is grieving. All of these people lost a lot, but they lost something close to them. Mama Murphy acts serene, Sturges is trying to make the best of it, and Preston puts on a mask of stoicism. All I can think of is Nate and Shaun. And when Sturges asks me to help with the settlement, I tell him as much.

“I’m sorry, but I have to find my son,” I say simply, trying to sound apologetic all the same. I know these people need help, but they’re out of immediate danger and hopefully they can make it okay from here. I’m a bit reluctant to leave them here in my home, but there’s not much left anyway and in the end, it's just a place. I’ve already wasted enough time, and every second I waste is one second ahead for that monster that took my son.

I snap my helmet back on, load a few magazines back up with spare bullets, tape up the holes in my vest, and head out. The corpse at the end of the bridge is, of course, still there. All I do is sigh and look away. I still can’t accept that brutal, horrible death is the way the world works now, but there’s nothing I can do for him.

I start playing with the Pip-Boy as I head back into Concord, which is probably not that smart considering that there could still be Raiders in the town. It’s really a quite advanced piece of technology, and would probably have made a huge impact if the war didn’t happen and they could get them out at a decent price. There’s a map, and it doesn’t take me long to mark out Fenway Park, or, as it’s called now, Diamond City. I’m not sure how it’s doing it, but the map also shows where I am.

It does have a radio, though. I flick the dial to “Diamond City Radio” and am about to start blasting whatever’s on the channel when I realize how monumentally stupid an idea that would be.

“Hey, so, can I listen to the radio on this through my helmet somehow?” I ask, waving the Pip-Boy around a bit.

It still feels ridiculous talking to my suit, even though I just talked to my robot this morning, but it pops up an option to tune into Diamond City Radio directly. Close enough.

A nervous sounding DJ reads out an ad for something called a “swatter” that you’re supposed to _beat people to death with_ , and then Right Behind You Baby starts playing. I recognize the song; it’s not my favorite, just another tired old classic, but literally and figuratively music to my ears nonetheless. I’m relieved that Diamond City is civilized enough to have its own radio station, but I seriously hope he’s joking about the swatter.

In the world I knew, it could only be a joke. But yesterday I killed a dozen people and nobody bat a fucking eyelash. So maybe he was serious, and the “jewel of the Commonwealth” was as savage and brutal as the little slice of Hell I’d seen.

Focus, Rose. Stop being such a Debbie Downer.

I see a light on the road ahead and start jogging toward it. I’m hoping it’s going to be someone friendly and not someone who’s going to shoot me in the face, but I make sure my shields are up and my pistol is ready anyway.

It’s a rough looking woman and her pack cow. The cow turns, and blinks at me with the four eyes on its two heads.

“What the hell is that?” I exclaim, jumping backwards in fright. So much for the stoic Rose that's always ready for a fight.

“You never seen a brahmin before?” the woman asks sarcastically. “So what’s your story? Lookin’ to trade, rob me, or just ask directions to Diamond City?”

Isn’t a brahmin some caste from India? I tell her honestly, “I’m just heading to Diamond City.”

“Hmph. Figures. Just keep going until you see the skyline, across the river,” she replies gruffly. “You’ll find the ‘great green jewel’ just inside the city limits.”

“Thanks,” I say politely. I know where Fenway Park is, I’d been there with Nate last year- well, two-hundred-and-one years ago now, I guess, if it’s true. But despite her rough demeanor, the trader lady is probably the first unconditionally helpful person I’d met so far.

Maybe there is hope, after all.

I keep walking. The road beneath me is rough and broken, full of cracks and potholes. I know the suit’s doing something weird, because it should be hell to walk on this but I can actually maintain a fast walk without breaking my ankles. There’s vegetation growing around the beaten path, but it’s all dry and half-dead.

I see another light and a sign for some kind of diner coming up, and I figure, maybe I’ll meet another nice person, so I head toward it.

“He bought them fair and square, Trudy!” a man angrily yells. “Ain’t our fault he’s strung out. Now don’t make me come in there and shoot up that little trading post of yours!”

And just like that, hopes shattered. I quickly crouch down and scrunch up behind some tires.

There are two men, maybe not Raiders but looking almost as rough and carrying equally junky looking guns, standing outside a run-down diner. I can see an older woman inside. Everyone looks wound up and pissed off.

I unsling Nate’s rifle. They don’t know I’m here, and I can probably take them out before they can hurt the woman inside the diner/trading post.

It would be the blood of two more on my hands.

I sling the rifle again. Maybe there’s another way. I stand up and head toward them, arms raised in the air.

They both turn, almost in unison, and point their guns straight at me. The bigger of the two shouts, “Whoa, whoa, easy there, scavver! This doesn’t involve you.”

Again, I’m at the end of a gun and again, I’m terrified. But these are the kind of people who you can’t give an inch to. So I bite back the fear and stand my ground. “You stop waving that gun in my face, or it’s _going_ to involve me.”

Somehow, what I thought was a feeble attempt at intimidation works. “Okay, okay, just take it easy. We’ll lower our weapons, all right? Just don’t do anything crazy.”

I ask them simply, “What’s going on here?”

“It’s a simple business dispute, got it? Trudy’s sitting on a pile of goods that she owes me,” he explains patiently. “I tried reasoning with her, but it looks like I gotta take what’s mind by force.”

In this shitty new world, he sounds almost reasonable. Someone owes you? Just shoot ‘em in the face!

“Wanna make some easy money?” he offers. “Help me out. I could use another gun. Or maybe you think you can talk some sense into her?”

I’m appalled, and a part of me wants to shoot him then and there. But I hold my tongue. “I might be able to talk some sense into Trudy. What do you know about her?”

“See that diner right in front of us? Trudy owns the place. She’s converted it into a small shop. I sell her chems, she gives me caps and parts I need.”

Chems. A drug dealer. My opinion of him is dropping by the second. But I stay my hand.

“And when her son Patrick had his eighteenth birthday, I _might_ have sold him some Jet. Then some more. Then a lot more. Now he’s in debt.”

I don’t know what Jet is, but it’s probably a lot harsher than the drugs we dealt with- things like Day Tripper, Daddy-O, or abusing Mentats or Med-X. Probably ground cave mushrooms mixed with radioactive ash or something horrible like that.

Scumbag. You made him an addict.

He's impatient. “Look, I sold him a product. I expect to get paid for my product. Now you gonna help us out or what?”

“I’ll talk to her right now,” I tell him. “Maybe I can work this out.”

He nods back. “I appreciate it. If things go sideways, we’ll back you up.”

It’s crazy how close to honorable he sounds.

I turn and head toward the diner, hands still half-raised in the air. The woman, Trudy, doesn’t point her gun at me, but it’s in her hand and her finger is on the trigger.

“I saw you and that poison-seller talking,” she snaps at me as I stand awkwardly in the doorway. “Well, he ain’t getting his money. Period.”

“Relax, I’m not on his side. The longer he talks, the more it makes me sick,” I say honestly. And then I offer, “I want to help you, Trudy. What can I do?”

“Get rid of Wolfgang! I don’t know what he offered you, but I’ll pay you 100 caps to kill that Jet-sellin’ scumbag,” she offers.

She just offered me money to kill someone- and as I understand it, _not very much money_. Is that how things work? Contract killings and protection rackets? I want to believe she’s unusually cutthroat, or better, just desperate, but again I just have this feeling that it isn’t even the worst of it.

Trudy mistakes my hesitation and tries to sweeten the deal. “Look, this place might not look it, but caravans come through here, okay? I have supplies. You help me, we can trade for whatever you need.”

“I don’t need the money,” I tell her right away. “But I will help you. Two guns are better than one- maybe it’ll scare him off.”

She snorts. “Ha! I doubt it.”

I stride into the diner and unsling my rifle again, crouching down behind the counter and racking the charging handle. Trudy follows my lead, while a young man- Patrick?- just sits there in the corner and rocks back and forth, muttering to himself.

“Damn fancy outfit you got there,” Trudy says appreciatively. “You a soldier?”

I shake my head. “Uh, no.”

“Mercenary, then,” she guesses.

“Also, no.” She’s visibly perplexed. “I’m a-”

“Are you going to pay or not?!” the drug dealer, Wolfgang, shouts at us.

I raise my rifle over the counter and aim it straight at him. “No deal, Wolfgang. You’re not getting your money. Back the hell off.”

“Big mistake!” the drug dealer shouts, and opens fire.

His aim is true, and I see my shields flare as an indicator blinks at me. But mine is true, too, and my bullets punch straight through the crudely hammered metal plate over his chest. His companion opens fire a second later, and he- wait, _she_ \- is also aiming for me. I shift my aim, but she’s already going down, little jets of blood spurting out from where Trudy had shot her repeatedly with her makeshift pistol.

It was almost easy. I just added another person to my body count- should really call it two. We have a dispute, it goes violent, bang bang, he’s dead. I can’t believe this is what the world has come to. I tell myself that if I can hold onto that- knowing it’s wrong, trying to find another way- then that’s at least something.

Even if it doesn’t work out.

Trudy smirks and _laughs_. “I can’t wait to see the crows feedin’ on that scumbag. Now, if you ever need to trade, my shop’s open.”

Ugh. I reluctantly ask, “You got things covered from here?” 

“Yeah.” She nods. “It’s gonna take my son a while to get off the chems, but we’ll make it. We always do.”

I smile politely, and politely, I mean it's forced. “Glad to hear it. If I’m ever in the neighborhood, I’ll stop by.”

And with my faith in humanity once again destroyed, I head off again toward Diamond City.


	9. The Bad Kind Of Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not too much to say here. I put in the thing about underground music, because they can't still be just listening to stuff from the 1950s, right? I refuse to believe Stairway To Heaven was never written in the Fallout universe!
> 
> I know some of you are probably curious about Rose's SPECIAL stats, and I will have them for you next time! I promise!

I see a vending machine delivery truck half-wrecked on the road soon after. Its cargo is remarkably intact, and I head toward it right away. It’s not the familiar Nuka-Cola machine that draws my eye, but rather the colorful Port-A-Diner beside it.

Surprisingly, it works. Sadly, it doesn’t actually give me a pie. The little arm moves over, drops down, and completely fails to pick up the plate.

I don’t remember these things ever working very well before the war, so after all this destruction it doesn’t surprise me that it doesn’t work. Too bad, the pie looks perfectly preserved, too.

I do take the Nuka-Cola Quantum in the machine beside it, though. It’s warm and probably flat, but it’s something.

The Corvega factory in Lexington is still lit up, so I start heading toward it. Concord may have been mostly a disaster, but maybe Lexington will be better. I’m not inclined to be optimistic, all things considered, but I have to remain hopeful.

Hope is pretty much all I’ve got.

That, and anger. I’ve been mad before, but this is different. This isn’t flying off the handle because you’re having a bad day. This is a deep, festering rage, something very different. I’m not a violent person, but I want nothing more than to find the animal that took my son and put a bullet in its fucking head.

That terrifies me. I shake my head, trying to shake the feeling.

All through this, I’m still listening to Diamond City Radio. The songs are familiar, and pretty much the same songs we had before the war. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s really mild music, the only kind that wasn’t censored by ’77. I had a few contraband tapes- really wish I could listen to some of them now- and if you knew the right person in the underground scene you could get some pretty wild stuff, but I guess none of that had survived the war. There couldn’t have ever been that many around to begin with, so it's not surprising.

I think it’s the nervous DJ that’s more calming than the music. He’s a mess, and I almost laugh at the poor guy, but what he’s saying sounds almost normal. Some news that means nothing to me, the weather (clear-ish), and sponsored spots for local businesses (some of which are a little creepy).

There’s a fire escape right in front of me on a brick building as I stride into Lexington. It looks sturdy enough, so head up to the roof for a better view. There are already some chairs, a table, and a workbench up there, so it looks like someone else had the same idea, but they’re not here now. A lantern is still lit, so they couldn’t have gone far.

The Slocum’s Joe across the street is also still lit up, so I head there next. There’s some junk on the counter, but the place seems to be deserted. I head to the back, pop open the kitchen door, and call, “Hello?”

Not even a peep.

I remember this Slocum’s Joe. One of my more memorable, if embarrassing, dates ended here. Or, more specifically, in the bathroom here. That wasn’t with Nate, but with someone else, back in my younger and crazier days.

And this place is empty like everywhere else, and they probably died years ago.

Skeeter Davis is playing over the radio. “Don’t they know it’s the end of the world”, yeah, I do. I almost shut it off, because I know this song isn’t about the literal apocalypse but it sure isn’t making me feel better.

 _Really_ wish I had my underground tapes.

I peek into the Red Rocket sitting kitty-corner, and it’s just as empty. I try calling, “Anyone in here?”

Nothing. I thought I heard people in the distance, but maybe it’s just my imagination. I keep going into town, into the town square. It’s now a mess of broken down cars, rusty furniture, and rubble.

Oh, and _zombies_.

I don’t know how else to describe the thing that leaps at me from the shadows. It’s all gnarled and gross, with skin falling off and only scraps of clothes left.

I shriek, backpedal, and draw my pistol, firing wildly at the abomination. My aim isn’t very good, but it only takes a few hits to go down. I put one in its head just to make sure.

Could this have been a feral ghoul like Preston was talking about?

I don’t have time to think about it. The monster has friends, and they come swarming at me, jumping from buildings and crawling out of rubble piles.

I run.

Fortunately, the ghouls aren’t very fast and they aren’t very smart. Two of them follow me across the square, and I haphazardly shoot at them, taking one down before I have to reload. Remembering that I don’t have an infinite amount of bullets, I force myself to aim, and put three into the second ghoul’s body.

I’m right up against the Super-Duper Mart, and when I reach for the door it creaks open. I spare a glance at the other ghouls, who are still wandering dumbly in circles, then slip inside.

* * * * *

The Super-Duper Mart is a mess.

I don’t know how this place still has power. I thought maybe there’d be someone here I could talk to, trade with, get help from, anything. Instead, I walk into a store that’s totally trashed. Half the shelves are tipped over, part of the ceiling has collapsed, and there’s filth, rubble, and _corpses_ everywhere.

It doesn’t make me feel any less bad when I start grabbing anything that looks useful. It’s all about survival and looking out for number one. I guess things like common decently and the concept of property ownership go out the window after the end. Besides, there’s nobody here, they’re probably dead.

That’s what I tell myself as I steal cash and bottle caps from the checkouts.

I grab some food: Cram, Sugar Bombs, Salisbury Steak. It doesn’t look appealing in its worn, faded packaging, but Cram is canned and Salisbury Steak uses a neat foil pouch, so maybe the food is still okay. If it’s only been a few years, or even a couple decades, it should be edible. Not tasty, but edible. If it’s been two hundred, I’m wasting my time.

I also grab a beer and a Nuka-Cola, because what the hell.

I’m hoping for ammo, but this Super-Duper Mart never carried it as far as I remember. A few cans of water are still sealed, if a bit rusty, and I take those. There’s a first-aid box behind the café counter, and I go at it with a bobby pin and a screwdriver. It’s a cheap lock and it’s still a struggle, but I’m still slightly surprised when it pops open because I’m really not very good at picking locks.

Nate was. He told me he learned it in the army, and I always wondered why he’d need to pick locks as a grunt. He’d laugh, and tell me about the crazy trouble bored soldiers always seemed to get into. And one time, he’d showed me, and I’d managed to get the world’s cheapest padlock open. Of course, it had taken me five minutes of guided fiddling, while he’d snapped it open in seconds. And now I’m wondering if his job actually did involve sneaking around and picking locks. I knew all about Alaska- too much, maybe- but he never mentioned anything in Colorado, not even in his darkest moments.

What else did you never tell me, Nate?

I shake my head and flip open the box. There’s a few needles inside and a tin of Mentats inside which I take, but everything else has decayed into an amorphous blob. I sigh and toss the box aside.

I’m starting to feel a little better about this scavenging thing, and my pouches are getting nicely full. The door to the back of the store is locked, but a swift kick in the doorknob with my spiffy metal boot knocks it off its hinges. And that’s pretty much where things start to go downhill.

There’s a guy lying on the table, very very dead. He looks like a Minuteman- maybe even one of the guys Preston mentioned. I carefully tiptoe around him, examine the radiation drugs and fusion cells beside his laser musket, spare him a glance, then take the drugs and cells. It feels wrong, but... survival. The dead don’t need that stuff, but I might.

And then one of the corpses on the ground moves. And then two more start crawling in through the open window.

I once again demonstrate my bravery by screaming like a schoolgirl, literally peeing myself, and running at full speed for the door.

I pop off a few rounds from my pistol as run, then slam the door open and bolt into the square. They keep chasing me, and they’re putting on a good turn of speed.

I fumble with the pistol and my rifle, and they’re almost on top of my when I get the latter mostly aimed and start shooting.

My wild hip-firing takes one down right away, and it gives me enough time to backpedal some more, crouch, aim and shoot. It’s not great shooting, but I get them before they get me. One of the ghouls’ legs falls off as it hits the ground.

Gross.

And then something smacks me in the side, and I realize one of the other ghouls, maybe one of the ones from before, snuck up on me. I hear myself screaming again and not in a tough girl power way but another scared shriek, and I shoot him at point blank. Nasty goop splashes onto my gun and suit as the now-corpse falls on top of me, and I quickly roll away and shoot the ghoul behind him before he gets any ideas.

Okay, I think that’s over, but I’m not sticking around to find out. I quickly reload and start heading for the car factory in a fast jog. I can see fires, lights, and even hear voices as I get closer.

The factory is a big thing all up on a concrete platform, I guess you could call it. I don’t see any stairs nearby, but the concrete embankment is sloped and I think if I jump I could maybe reach the railing and climb over it.

I do an experimental hop and realize that I’m being a little optimistic. I make it maybe halfway.

I glance behind me. No feral ghouls, but that doesn’t help my paranoia any.

The railing has holes in it that I might be able to grab onto that are quite a bit lower than the top. Okay, maybe if I run and jump it…

I take a few paces back, then dash forward and leap into the air. As soon as I do so, I feel something kick me from behind, and I’m flying through the air well above the railing. I don’t have time to consider the possibility that I may have a goddamn _jetpack_ , because the ground is coming up again.

This time, I manage to not totally botch the landing, though it’s still awkward, makes me stumble after, and I think I heard some glass breaking in one of my pouches.

A rough-looking man and woman stalk toward me, with confused but kind of angry looks on their faces. Scratch that. Mostly just angry.

“Hi, uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that,” I excuse with a silly smile, palms up in the air. “My name’s Rose, I’m a traveler. Maybe you can help me. I have some stuff to trade-”

They raise their guns and open fire.

“Fuck!” I swear, running for a wrecked car. Bullets slam into my armor, and the body person indicator flashes angrily at me. “Shields! Shields now!”

The blue protective bubble quickly flashes into being, which is good because the car isn’t giving me any cover from the guy up the ramp on the left with the machine gun or the guys above me taking potshots.

I whip my rifle around and shoot the guy with the machine gun. I manage to get a few good hits, even though I’m not doing a great job at staying calm. You have goddamn shields, Rose. Take your time, a few bullets won’t hurt you.

I can’t believe I just said that. Thought that.

He goes down and I dart right past him, taking hits to my back as I run. I can see an open field beyond, and I leap the rusty fence in front of me. Again, the booster jetpack thing kicks in and I go flying through the air, but this time I’m ready for it and I only stumble a little bit on the landing.

So much for the car factory. As I keep running- and I mean _running_ , because I want to get as far away as possible- I see a message pop up on my HUD. _Military Frequency AF95 Detected_.

“Huh, what does that mean?” I ask. “Can I hear it?”

“…message repeating,” a woman’s voice crackles. “This is Scribe Haylen of Reconnaissance Squad Gladius to any unit in transmission range. Authorization Arx. Ferrum. Nine. Five. Our unit has sustained casualties and we're running low on supplies. We're requesting support or evac from our position at Cambridge Police Station. Automated message repeating…”

I stop mid-stride. An active military frequency. A reconnaissance squad. Authorization code. And all that army lingo I don’t really understand. Could there still be still be some remnant of the US military left?

I doubt I can be of much help, but I start heading for the police station anyway.

 


	10. Too Much To Hope For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to add a lot of thoughts on some dialogue that weren't in the game, but I feel it makes sense for Rose to have. Which I guess is every fanfic based on a run, but more specifically I'm trying to write her under the assumption that she doesn't really know anything about the post-war world, which sadly Bethesda didn't always do. She's very much grounded in the world before the bombs
> 
> I finally actually checked Rose's SPECIAL stats in-game, and they look like this (non-adjusted):  
> STR 2  
> PER 5  
> END 3  
> CHR 7  
> INT 6  
> AGL 3 (up to 4 by this point)  
> LCK 3
> 
> I feel that all these make sense. She's a weakling by Fallout standards, with abysmal STR and END, but she didn't really do anything before the war that would require her not to be. She's fairly perceptive and has excellent charisma and intelligence, being a lawyer at all. She's not very agile at first, but starts to limber up as she ducks, jumps, and rolls her way across the wasteland. And finally, she's not exactly lucky if she ended up in this situation in the first place!
> 
> In-game, the suit boosts STR, PER, END, and AGL. It's actually incredibly OP, giving very high stats across the board, and I've toned it down for the fic.

Once again, I find myself running _toward_ the gunfire. Just like last time, I know it’s a terrible idea and do it anyway.

I guess the one good thing is that I don’t have time to dwell on how truly eerie the now-ruined Cambridge is. I run right past the Red Rocket that mysteriously still has power, the wandering Protectron, the torn-up houses and the burnt-out cars. It’s starting to get dark, and now it’s raining, too.

I hear laser fire, which I hope is a good sign in a way. The army was big on lasers, but it was pretty hard to just go out and buy one. So whoever (whomever?) it is, they have real military equipment at least. Then again, maybe it's just makeshift laser muskets like the Minutemen had. It could even be _their_ laser muskets, stolen from the dead.

The police station is surrounded by a barricade I don’t remember, although it looks like part of it was its old fence. The sign is still readable, surprisingly, and the place is lit brightly in the fading light. As I approach, I see a laser beam lance out and rip through one of those zombies- feral ghouls- that was trying to get into the station.

“Here goes nothing,” I say to myself, hoping the false confidence in my voice will somehow boost my _actual_ confidence. There are _so_ many things that could go wrong.

I dash down the street, unslinging my rifle and nearly tripping over myself in the process.

Steady, Rose.

A pair of feral ghouls emerge from the alleyway across from the police station, charging toward it with reckless abandon. I crouch, breathe, and start cracking off shots.

A third zombie pops out from behind a car. I shift my aim, the little red diamond pops up, and I take him down with a few rounds in the chest.

I’m not sure if that’s all of them or just a pause, but I decide that now is a good time to introduce myself and zip inside the barricade. This time, I’m not hopelessly naïve, and I’m ready to bolt even as I raise my hand and give a stupid little wave.

There’s a man in black power armor standing on the steps, a woman with a laser pistol behind him, and a man in a flightsuit sitting down against the wall looking seriously hurt. In front of them are a _lot_ of dead feral ghouls.

I can’t get much from a brief glimpse, but these guys don’t really look like the army I knew. Red and black, not green and brown, and I don’t recognize the emblem on the front of the man’s power armor.

And then the man in power armor brings his laser rifle, points it at me, and pulls the trigger. The world goes dark, and I wonder if I just died before everything goes clear again a second later. I feel a weight on my shoulder, I yelp and jump forward, and a feral ghoul with a fist-size hole burned through its head slumps to the ground behind me.

Okay, he wasn’t shooting at me.

“Civilian in the perimeter! Check your fire!” the man in power armor shouts.

“Thank you! I’m sorry!” I shout, quickly dashing forward and taking position on the steps beside him.

We don’t have time for any other discussion, because the feral ghouls are flowing through the barricade in even greater numbers than before. They’re really close, but I take a deep breath and try my damnedest to shoot deliberately and carefully, just as Nate taught me. I have friends now, or at least temporary allies, and that helps.

The rifle shudders in my hands as I let loose bullet after bullet at the advancing horde. I almost wish it had an auto sear- but no, I’d just waste precious ammo. It clicks empty, and I drop the magazine and slam in another one. I’ll pick up the empty one later.

Four bullets later, it’s empty too, and though the crowd is thinned out, they’re right on top of us. One of the hideous monsters leaps at me. I scream and kick wildly, catching it midair in the chest and sending it flying.

There’s another one right behind it, and for some reason I reach for Nate’s pistol with my left hand before a laser shot cuts the monster down in its tracks.

I nod thanks, pick up my dropped magazine, and properly switch to my pistol, readying myself physically, mentally, and every other way for the next wave. But it doesn’t come.

“Looks like we’re clear,” the man in power armor- I’ve really got to get his name- announces. He sticks his laser rifle on his back- that’s one neat thing about power armor I wish I had- and turns to me. “We appreciate the assistance, civilian. But what’s your business here?”

I get a closer look at his insignia, and I struggle to hide my disappointment. It’s a sword through some wings and a circle full of gears. I don’t see any recognizable American insignia at all. I don’t know who these people are, but they’re not the Army.

It was too much to hope for. But maybe they can help me anyway.

I keep my response professional but direct. “Before I answer, will you tell me who you are?”

And he doesn’t go for it. “In due time. If you want to remain in our compound, I suggest you answer my question first.”

It’s not a threat, exactly, but the threat is there.

“I’m just trying to survive out here, like everybody else,” I reply vaguely. Asking if they were the US Military is probably not a great idea, and I’m pretty sure they’re not anyway.

I guess if it really has been two hundred years, and we haven’t rebuilt-

“The way you charged in and engaged those ferals, I find that a bit difficult to believe,” he interrupts. “Are you from a local settlement?”

I shake my head. “Don’t really have a home.”

“An answer that I hear often. Whether it holds truth or not… remains to be seen.”

He’s suspicious, but I find it hard to blame him. From what (admittedly little) I’ve seen so far, the Good Samaritan isn’t a thing anymore, yet here I am. And he’s not showing it, but he’s probably pretty curious about the high-tech armor on my body and the near-mint rifle in my hands.

“If I appear suspicious, it’s because our mission here has been difficult,” he continues, figuratively throwing me a bone. “Since the moment we arrived in the Commonwealth, we’ve been constantly under fire. If you want to continue pitching in, we could use an extra gun on our side.”

“I want to help, but I don’t like the secrecy.” And I’m more honest than I’d like to admit. Even with this iron wall who almost threatened me, it’s tough to say no. Even though it’s probably going to involve violence, it’s hard to walk away. But… “Who are you? Really?”

He pauses, considering it for a moment. “I’m Paladin Danse, Brotherhood of Steel. Over there is Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys.”

So, some kind of weird knightly order. Definitely not the actual US Military. I’m disappointed, but it was a long shot to begin with.

“The Brotherhood of Steel?”

“Our order seeks to understand the nature of technology. Its power. Its meaning to us as humans,” the pious Paladin proselytizes. It’s the pamphlet pitch, but it sounds like he really believes it. “And we fight to secure that power from those who would abuse it.”

I squirm in the piece of powerful pre-war technology that I am definitely not abusing.

He sighs. “Before the Great War, science and technology became more of a burden than a benefit. The atom bomb, bio-engineered plagues and FEV are clear examples of the horrors that technological advancement had wrought. We’re here to make sure that never happens again.”

“Your cause seems noble,” I reply politely. I don’t think I really agree with him, but he sounds so earnest, and the last thing I want is a fight with a guy in power armor. “What do you need me to do?”

“We’re on recon duty, but I’m down a man and our supplies are running low. I’ve been trying to send a distress call to my superiors, but the signal’s too weak to reach them,” he explains to me.

“I’m not a soldier, and I’m not a technician, either,” I tell him honestly. “I don’t know if I can help you.”

“Scribe Haylen has been working on a solution to the problem,” Paladin Danse informs. He nods to the others. “Scribe?”

The woman picks up, “I’ve modified the radio tower on the roof of the police station, but I’m afraid it just isn’t enough. What we need is something that will boost the signal. There’s a piece of pre-war technology called a Deep Range Transmitter over at ArcJet Systems that would do it.”

“We infiltrate the facility, secure the transmitter, and bring it back here,” the Paladin finishes. He locks eyes with me, and there’s a certain intensity I can’t look away from. “So, what do you say? You willing to lend the Brotherhood of Steel a hand?”

The smart thing to do would be to politely decline and walk away. But I still cling to the hope that they can help me back, or they have some answers, or something.

I nod. “Okay. I’ll help you.”

“Outstanding.” He turns and stomps over toward the entrance of the police station, power armor clanking with every step. “Haylen, take Rhys inside and bind his wounds. Rhys, once you’re on your feet, I want you to make certain that the perimeter is secure.”

“Yes, sir!”

“I’m on it!”

I follow him up the steps, and he tells me, “Alright, civilian, time to prove your worth. Head into the police station and resupply yourself, then let me know when you’re ready to begin.”

“I can just take what I need, and you’re not going to shoot me?” I ask. In this world, I have to make sure.

He nods, voice firm. “Take what you need, no more but no less.”

“Alright, big guy, let’s go,” I hear Haylen say from beside me.

“Need help?” I offer, holding out a hand. Up close, he doesn’t look so good, with some bloody rips in his flightsuit and a pained expression on his face. “I have some-”

“I’m fine, wastelander,” Rhys snaps at me, stumbling to his feet with Haylen’s support. I hold the door open as they hobble their way inside, and he keeps glaring at me the whole way. For what it’s worth, Haylen offers an apologetic smile.

* * * * *

I don’t think I’ve ever actually been in this police station. It’s definitely seen better days, but these Brotherhood guys had tried to make it livable, pushing the rubble into piles in the corner, stringing a tarp over the hole in the roof, and spreading out bedrolls near the entrance.

There’s a box of 10mm ammo on the counter, which I grab. There’s nine bullets in it, and they’ll work for Nate’s pistol. I then head toward the back of the police station, through the eerily empty bullpen and past the broken-open cells, looking for the armory.

I find a storage room that might or might not have been the armory, but has some weapons and ammo in it. There’s a few lockers, a duffle bag, and a wooden crate that used to hold explosives, which I dig through. I find some old military fatigues, a policeman hat, one of those awful homemade pipe guns, what looks like one of those Russian flaming cocktails in a bottle, and a few rounds of .38 and .308. I take the ammo and put everything else back. I almost take the policeman hat, and I grab a bottle of radiation drugs before putting it back. I’m already loaded pretty good from the zombie supermarket from hell. I’ve even got some Nuka-Cola-

Or, I did.

Sure enough, one of the bottles had shattered. I waste the next five minutes picking glass shards out of my hip pouch- having cutproof gloves makes it a lot easier- and wiping everything dry (well, dry-ish, and still sticky) with a dirty dishcloth.

When I get back into the reception area, Haylen is just finishing up bandaging Rhys’s wounds. Fortunately, most of the gross part is done, but the blood-soaked gauze on the table and the red splotches on her fingers are enough to make me squeamish. I quickly look away.

Rhys maybe takes the gesture as something rude, because he immediately snaps, “Think you’re some kind of hot-shot?”

“No, not at all,” I correct him with a chuckle. “I’m just a woman way out of her depth, trying not to die horribly.”

“You wouldn’t be anything without your fancy armor,” He’s absolutely right about that, but he keeps going. “People like you shouldn’t have tech like that. Bet you stole it, use it to prey on innocent people when nobody’s looking.”

“Hey-”

After Haylen shoots him the most withering glare I’ve ever seen, Rhys backtracks. “Look, you’re the hired help, no more, no less. I’m not interested in making friends, so go see if Top needs you to do anything else.”

With that, he stumbles to his feet and limps his way out of the room.

“Sorry about the other guys,” Haylen apologizes after he’s left. “They-“

I shake my head. “I can’t blame them, given how things are.”

“If you really feel that way, then give them a chance,” she urges. “Look, it may not seem like it, but Danse is a good man. He’s just all soldier… protocol is his bread and butter.”

“And Rhys?” I ask with a motion to the other room.

“Well, let’s just say he’s as hard-headed as a Mister Gutsy,” she admits. “But you know what? I’d trust both of them with my life, because they’re good people and that’s hard to come by nowadays.”

“I hear you, Haylen,” I agree with a nod. “God, I can count the number of people who _haven’t_ tried to kill me on one hand.”

“You ready to move out?” Paladin Danse asks, clanking in behind me. He picks his helmet up off the counter and locks it on over his head.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Which is not very, but I don’t tell him that.

* * * * *

I don’t have any trouble keeping up with Paladin Danse. He seemed to be worried about it, but I easily keep pace as we march out of Cambridge to the east. Although he’s moving fast, the power armor just seems so clunky as he noisily clunks along with the awkwardest gait I’ve ever seen.

Nate would have had something for this. Would have got along with Danse, too. Thanks for the spiffy armor and the shocking heads-up, but it really should have been you marching down the road with a gun in your hands.

The Paladin pretty much rants at me as we make our way along. I can tell that he’s stressed, happy to get out of the station and happy to have someone to talk at even if I’m not listening and he’ll never admit it. He’s saying something about a strange frequency, but honestly, it doesn’t mean much to me. I get the sense that it’s abnormal, but I mean, to me, everything about this place I once called home is abnormal.

We pass by a lot of dead cars and messed-up trees as we stalk along the ruined highway. Even pass by a cluster of Pulowski Preservation Shelters. I shudder to think about the people who tried to use the things, not realizing that they’d just be metal coffins.

It’s getting dark. I ask my suit- quietly, so Danse doesn’t hear- if it can do anything about that. It can, and a few seconds later, everything gets brighter. I was expecting that green night-vision effect like in the movies or an actual night-vision scope (family day again!), but nope, everything’s just brighter. That works for me.

We run across some Raiders. Or, maybe, they run across us. They’re so stupid, attacking us with pool cues and homemade guns. I mean, a guy in seriously mean looking power armor and a lady with a gun that isn’t made from plumbing bits. Danse takes them down effortlessly, and I guess I help a little.

After that’s through, Paladin Danse drops the bombshell that his recon team wasn’t the first to visit the Commonwealth. They sent two other teams over the past seven years, one successful and one not so much. His own team had lost half its number.

If he’s not lying, and I don’t think he is, the Brotherhood seems to be a big deal, and the rest of the country might not be as screwed up as Massachusetts after all. It's not much hope, but it's something.

I begin to offer my condolences when he stops, pivots, and shoots a wild dog in the head. Another one pops out of the bush, and I have my rifle halfway up when he vaporizes that one too.

“I would like to not be surprised by things like that,” I tell my suit.

It doesn’t give me anything for that.

“Can you show me possible enemies and targets?” I repeat, rewording it. This time, a little indicator pops up on the compass. I turn my head back and forth, and it looks like it’s tracking Paladin Danse. Okay, I’ll play with this later.

“There it is... ArcJet Systems,” Paladin Danse announces, slowing to a more normal walking pace as we make our way through a parking lot full of wrecked cars.

The building is one of those typical industrial-office ones, with a smooth metal exterior that’s now filthy, full of holes, and pitted with rust. Surprisingly, there’s still a spotlight on, illuminating the colorful ArcJet sign that’s weathered the years surprisingly well.

“There shouldn’t be any exterior security, so we’ll head in through the front,” Danse states. The door is just a sliding metal one, and doesn’t seem to be reinforced. Locked, maybe, but I doubt that’ll stop us.

“Listen up,” Danse says seriously as he starts pulling the door open with one giant metal hand. “We do this clean and quiet. No heroics and by the book. Understood?”

I wasn’t planning on it. Stay safe, stay alive. I shouldn’t even be here, I should be heading to Diamond City, looking for Shaun. Damn, why couldn’t I just say no? No heroics is a good plan, but everyone I meet is so goddamn desperate I couldn’t turn away and live with myself.

I shake my head, like that’s going to clear it, and draw Nate’s pistol from its holster. It’s a little big for my hands, but I know I have more 10mm rounds than .38 and it packs more of a punch than my little target plinker. “Loud and clear.”

He gets the door open, but pauses. “Remember, our primary target is the Deep Range Transmitter. Stay focused and check your fire. I don’t want to be hit by stray bullets.”

“Understood. Ladies first?” I ask him. Maybe it’s the fatigue, maybe the stress, but I can’t help myself.

He shoots me a look.

“Sorry. Right behind you, Paladin.”

 


	11. Handle It Like A Soldier

ArcJet Systems is in decent condition, all things considered. I mean, the glass is smashed out, the floor is busted, and the staircase to the offices has come down, but the sign in front of us is still shiny and the walls are starting to rust but still have most of their color. Some of the damage is clearly from the bombs and centuries- _really, centuries?_ \- of decay.

But not all of it. There’s torn up boxes, opened drawers, and what looks like a busted-open safe behind the reception. I’m not an expert, but I think it’s been tossed. I think the Paladin sees it too, but it’s impossible to read body language.

And then he starts ranting at me about the greed and evil of corporations. I mean, maybe he has a point. I’d actually read some of the subversive literature before it had all been burned, and it was thought-provoking if nothing else. But it’s just so weird hearing it after the world has ended and all the corporations are ashes and dust.

Can’t we just let go and begin again?

We head into a room full of busted robots just outside their charging stations, and Paladin Danse stops. It’s a little eerie, but honestly, I’ll take broken security robots over security robots shooting at us. Those things can get really nasty. There was this guy in Arkansas who got killed by a Protectron, and his family sued the security company over it. Embarrassingly, I don’t remember who actually won that case, but what I do remember is that the man was _literally_ burned to ash. So far my armor has held up well against bullets, but what about lasers?

“It appears as though the facility’s automated security’s already been dealt with,” Danse remarks. His voice is curt and tense.

If he’s tense, I’m terrified. I’m just trying not to show it. I stammer, “I take it this is not the Brotherhood of Steel’s handiwork?”

“Unfortunately, no. Look at the evidence. There isn’t a single spent ammunition casing or drop of blood in sight.” He grips his rifle tightly. “These robots were assaulted by institute synths.”

I understand what those words are on their own, but together they’re almost meaningless to me. If I really have missed two hundred years of history, I guess that only makes sense. “They were attacked by other robots?”

“Not exactly,” he corrects. “Synths are an abuse of technology created by the institute, abominations meant to ‘improve’ upon humanity. It’s unacceptable! They can’t be allowed to exist.”

“The institute?” I ask as we move out again, trying not to give away that I have no idea what he’s talking about. Should that be the Institute with a capital I?

“They’re a group of scientists who went underground when the Great War started,” he explains as we make our way through a destroyed office. It looks like the synths or whatever have been through this place, too. What could they have been looking for? “Spent the last few decades littering the Commonwealth with their technological nightmares.”

“That’s horrible. I’ll be on the lookout,” I assure him, inwardly wondering who I sided with. I get that Paladin Danse really doesn’t like the Institute, and that the Brotherhood are probably enemies with them. I get the impression that he’s a good man, but I also get the impression that he’s, well, a fanatic, if I’m going to be honest. Maybe the Institute isn’t really the bad guy. Maybe they can even help me.

Or, they might be the motherfuckers who killed my husband and took my son.

A cold shiver of fear runs down my spine when I realize that I don’t know if the _Brotherhood_ isn’t involved. Neither Danse or Rhys are the monster, and Haylen isn’t the woman in the suit. But I only have their word that they’re the only ones in the Commonwealth. This could all be a distraction, or a trap.

 “This place is a mess, but I still see a few pieces of salvage that the Brotherhood might be interested in,” Danse interrupts. “After we’re done here I’ll have to mark this place for sweep and retrieve.”

I grip my pistol tightly, like it’ll do me any good. Even if I shot Danse in the back, it would just piss him off. I don’t have a single weapon that could hurt a soldier in power armor. Maybe the minigun could have, but I left that huge heavy thing in Concord. I’m somewhat confident that I can outrun him, especially in these narrow corridors, but somewhat less confident that my shields will protect me from his laser rifle if he decides to shoot _me_ in the back.

I guess I just have to cross my fingers and trust him for now.

The next room is a dead end, with a rubble on the far end and a reinforced door locked tight to our left. I tense up, but Danse just asks me if I can try to get the door open, then takes position beside it.

I trot over to the terminal across from it, but it’s locked. Figures. There’s another one across the room, and that one’s wide open.

It says it’s an analyst’s workstation, but there are no files accessible. If I logged in, I could probably get access, but I’m pretty sure this terminal doesn’t control the door. There is a message about password security and an automated password change notification. Which, of course, has a password: 9YB3N.

I wonder if this user has access to the other terminal, too? I sneak a paranoid glance at Danse, but he’s still guarding the door and not pointing his laser rifle at me.

Okay. Back to the other terminal, put the password in, and boom. Security Door Control is the second entry on the list. I peek at Danse again, and then back to the terminal. Two taps of the ENTER key later, the door slides open.

And then I instinctively duck when a laser beam zips by and burns a hole in the wall right behind me. I snap my arm up and almost shoot Danse when I realize that it’s not him, and someone’s shooting at us both from the other side of the threshold.

They look human, ish. I can see why Danse would call them abominations. These synths are built in a very human shape, but with odd plasticky skin and visible metal skeletons. They’re creepy as hell and they’re trying to kill me, so I don’t hesitate to pull the trigger on them.

Sparks and bits of robot fly when my bullets hit their mark. Nate’s pistol kicks harder than mine, and I grip it tight so it doesn’t jump and screw up my aim. The synth is a little tougher than a zombie, but it’s not bulletproof. Four or five bullets and it goes down.

Danse vaporizes two of them with his laser, and we combine forces on the fourth synth, reducing it to a pile of bits with a combination of bullets and lasers. My gun clicks empty as a laser beam bisects the thing’s neck and it goes crashing to the ground.

“Move up,” the Paladin orders, all business.

“Right behind you,” I acknowledge. I follow him through the next room and a hole in the wall, carefully reloading and slipping the empty magazine into one of my more-intact pockets.

We make it three steps into the concrete tunnel when a barrage of blue lasers erupts from the breach at the far end. Most of them hit Danse, but I see my shields flare and feel a few taps in the shoulder and leg.

I flatten myself against the wall and glance at my shoulder, then my leg. Both look okay. I peek at my shield indicator, which is down a good chunk.

I lean over and blindfire through the hole while Danse just crouches and pops off shots, taking hit after hit to his power armor. I quickly peek around the corner and there’s probably six or seven synths with lasers there.

I take a deep breath and lean around the edge of the hole, catching a laser hit in the shoulder again. I grimace, try to ignore it, and aim the pistol with an awkward one-handed stance, popping off rounds as fast as I can pull the trigger. At this kind of range, though, even I manage to land most of my shots on one synth or another. Two of them go down in a shower of sparks before I pivot back around the corner to reload.

Paladin Danse’s power armor is literally smoking. Worried, I shout, “You okay?”

“Good to go!” he snaps back. And then, to my surprise, stands up and starts advancing into the laser fire. Before I know it, he’s through the breach and I quickly edge up behind him.

No heroics, huh?

He blows a synth’s head off at point blank, then blasts away a synth taking potshots at us from the window on the other side of the room. He barely pauses, heading up a broken balcony that’s now a convenient ramp ahead of us.

I guess I’m supposed to cover his six. I turn and backpedal behind him. There’s a flash of movement above- a synth on the other broken half of the balcony, ready to fire.

“Behind you!” I drop to one knee and squeeze off a few shots into its stomach, while Danse turns with surprising agility and catches it in the chest with a laser beam. The synth crashes over the edge and breaks into pieces when it hits the ground without having a chance to fire a shot.

Even though I’m literally pissing my pants right now, I have to admit, that was pretty fucking ninja.

I nod at Danse, and we keep going. This section is full of blocked passages and broken floors, but he seems to know where he’s going. Maybe he studied the blueprints or something. We snake our way through mercifully-empty offices and storage rooms, then head up a staircase.

“Remain vigilant, we’ve got turrets ahead,” he warns, pausing.

I spot a copy of Tesla Science Magazine sitting next to a busted terminal and quickly swipe it, then follow him out into the corridor.

A round turret beep angrily and pops out of the ceiling. It manages to get off a few laser shots at us as we fill it full of lead and photons before it explodes.

Not too bad.

We round the corner, and then I dive for cover behind a desk when another turret pops out of the ceiling and starts firing bullets at us. Or, more specifically, at me. Deadly splinters fly everywhere as the bullets tear apart the desk.

“Can you cover me?” I yell at Danse.

“Affirmative!” He steps out right into the turret’s line of sight and fires, but it’s still fixated on me.

I take a deep breath, experimentally bouncing on my knees as splinters fly around me. Then I leap forward and roll back around the corner. I feel a crunch under me, but I’m too charged with adrenaline to realize what it is. Instead, I bring up my pistol and fire into the turret, or rather at the turret, because with a weird line of sight and a weirder position on the ground, I can’t hit anything.

It doesn’t matter, though, because the Paladin’s aim is true and the turret explodes in a shower of broken metal.

Wordlessly, we keep going, heading down another flight of stairs back to what’s probably the floor we were on. There’s a door at the end, but it still has power and slides open when Danse flicks the switch beside it.

“Engine core’s ahead,” he states tersely. “Should be our final stop.”

“Lead the way,” I reply. The corridor ahead is dark, and a second later my suit’s light amplification kicks in and it’s bright again. “Huh, looks like the power’s out.”

There’s some natural light streaming into the chamber up ahead, and it illuminates one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen. I would have been able to appreciate it more if the circumstances were better, but even still…

It’s a rocket engine. A real rocket engine, set up for testing I guess, with the nozzle right ahead of us at eye level. The bell is taller than Danse in his power armor, and the turbomachinery above it about the same height. I could probably climb up inside the combustion chamber- it would be really dumb, but I think I could fit. Even more incredibly, the engine looks almost pristine.

“Wow,” I breathe.

The Paladin, unfortunately, is less appreciative. He remarks, “Scribes would have a field day in here.”

I step forward and gently brush my fingers against the cool metal of the nozzle. Well, I’m assuming it’s cool metal, but it could be blazing hot for all I know. I can’t feel that much through my gloves, but I can still tell the ridges are there.

“The transmitter should be in the control room at the top of the core but it looks like the elevators are dead,” he calls, matter-of-factly. “There has to be a power backup system somewhere. Scout the maintenance area off of the main chamber. I’ll remain here and watch our backs.”

Yeah, he definitely had blueprints to look at. I’m used to the suit enough that I can take the stairs two at a time without tripping, and I trot down them. I sneak a glance at the engine bell. The injector plate is just barely visible inside.

As much as I appreciate the engine, I’m kinda glad he told me to scout the maintenance area and he’s standing guard in the main chamber. There’s a chance all this might still be functional. Getting toasted by a rocket engine would be an interesting way to die, but I don’t have any plans on dying today.

The maintenance area as messy as it is spartan, with the usual assortment of junk everywhere that seems to be the norm in this day and age. There’s a minimal control panel on the left, under a window into the main chamber, and what looks like a modified jet engine on a table to my left. Everything is dead, but I can see a dim light in the room off this one.

It’s the generator room, naturally. There’s two fusion generators, both of them dead as doornails, and a flickering terminal on the far side of the room. It’s locked, but like the one in Concord, it’s no match for my hacking skills.

Or, you know, just guessing the password, which is very creatively “WORD”.

The terminal does exactly what I hoped, it guides me through starting the auxiliary generators (which pretty much consists of mashing ENTER). They whir to life, and I hear the snap of a switch before the lights all come on.

“Engine core power restored,” a robotic voice announces from a speaker on the wall. “Thermal engine fueled, primed, and standing by for your command.”

And then I hear laser fire coming from the engine core.

“Paladin!” I shout from my side of the glass. There are a bunch of synths in the engine room, trading laser fire with him. He takes one down, and then two more drop down from a balcony to take its place. And then another two, and he’s completely surrounded.

“Hit the button! Start the test fire!” he shouts at me, kicking a Synth to pieces and blowing another’s head off.

“What? Are you serious! It’ll cook you alive,” I yell back. I draw my pistol and get ready to get over there and help. “Just hold on, I’m coming!”

“Negative! Fire the engine!” Paladin Danse screams at me, batting away a synth with his rifle. The room is practically swarming with them now. “That’s an order!”

No way I can take them all out. Maybe he’s right. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and slam my fist down on the button.

“Command accepted. Commencing five second countdown.” I can hear the whine of the turbines spinning up, and showers of sparks erupt from pyrotechnics on the side of the engine.

“Come on, come on,” I mutter. This is crazy. But by my current standards, really not that crazy.

When the engine lights, I can feel it through the thick glass, through my suit. It’s a solid whump, and I’m sure it’s deafeningly loud but I feel it more than I hear it. A beautiful blue jet with orange aura erupts from the engine nozzle, obliterating the pile of rubble beneath it. Flames fill the chamber and the blast rushes toward the open doors on the side-

“Oh, shit!” I bolt over to the doors on my end of the corridor and hurriedly slam them shut, flipping the latch over. I don’t know why they didn’t close automatically, but I almost got toasted!

I watch in a mix of awe and horror as the powerful engine obliterates everything in the room. Most of the synths are literally blasted apart by the pressure, and the bits immediately start to char and melt. The room is full of smoke, and I can’t see Paladin Danse at all.

Then the roar dies down and the brilliant light goes out, leaving a room full of smoke. The robotic announcer unhelpfully informs me that the test completed with an efficiency rating of ninety-six-point-something percent.

I run to the door, rip the latch open and dash back into the engine chamber.

Powerful fans start clearing the smoke from the room, revealing a burned-up mess. I can tell the room is hot, really hot. The synths have been slagged, and some of the debris directly under the engine is glowing orange. I don’t feel the heat, which is weird, but I still step gingerly and keep my hands up, not touching anything.

How heatproof is my suit? I see a little smoke icon and a little fire icon, so clearly it doesn’t like this charred mess any more than I do. But they’re not red, and there’s no alarms, so I don’t think I’m in imminent danger of spontaneously combusting.

I see Paladin Danse in the corner of the room, not far from my previous vantage point, and run over to him. He’s down on one knee, and his armor is pretty badly burnt. “Oh my god. Are you alright?”

He replies, clearly in pain, but he replies. “Got cooked by those flames, but thanks to my power armor I’m still in one piece.”

I offer him a hand, which he waves off, stumbling to his feet on his own. With that power armor, his weight would probably just topple me over, so maybe he has the right idea.

“Are you sure? You just took a rocket engine to the face,” I chide. “I don’t have any burn gel, but I have some stimpacks-”

“The important thing is that we’re still alive, and we have a way to get to the transmitter,” he dismisses. Before I can argue, he hits the call button on the elevator. “Let’s go.”

His movements are stiff, and I cringe. That armor definitely isn’t as heatproof as he claims, because he’s clearly burned pretty bad and clearly in a lot of pain. As the elevator makes its way down, I repeat, “You should really let me look at those burns. I’m not a doctor, but-”

“I told you, I’m fine,” he repeats obstinately. “Scribe Haylen will see to my wounds _after_ we have retrieved the transmitter.”

I shake my head, but drop the subject, instead heading into the elevator. He clanks in behind me, nearly scraping the door frame in the process. I reach over and tap the button, and we’re heading up toward the control room.

The elevator ride is surprisingly smooth. I don’t really trust an elevator that hasn’t been maintained in two hundred years, let alone one that survived a nuclear apocalypse, but we make it to the top in one piece.

“Let me take the lead,” I offer, against my better judgement. He’s a soldier, but he’s hurt, and I don’t know how intact his power armor really is. I’m… actually, pretty damn tired, but all my bits are okay and my shields are back at a hundred percent.

He reluctantly agrees. I draw my pistol, crouch, and slowly advance through the hallway into the control room. As soon as I pass the threshold, laser fire nearly takes my head off. I feel a few hits, and my HUD flashes ominously.

“Shit!” I quickly bring up my pistol and pop off six shots at the nearest synth, sending him to the ground. Danse opens fire from behind me, taking out another one.

I dash across the room, diving behind a desk. It’s not great cover, but it’s better than nothing. There are two synths left in the room, one with just a baton but one with a nasty-looking laser rifle. The one with the baton charges at me, and I waste no time in shooting it in the chest.

I get two rounds off before my pistol clicks back, empty, and it’s still charging at me. I jump back, leaving me exposed to take a laser hit in the side from the other synth. I swing my pistol at the synth with the baton, catching it in the arm and doing next to nothing. It swings and hits me in the shoulder, which also does basically nothing.

If it was someone else, I might actually laugh.

But since it’s me and I really don’t like being hit with a stick, I lash out with a kick to the machine’s shin. That works a lot better, shattering its leg and sending it toppling to the ground. I stomp its head in, and it goes still.

Meanwhile, Paladin Danse has taken out the last synth. He pauses in the middle of the room, swivelling his head. Then he orders, “Check the synth remains. They may have been after the transmitter as well.”

Even though they’re full of sharp sparky bits, I much prefer handling synth corpses to human ones. I sift through the bits of two synths, but the only electronics left are busted up pieces. There’s a red chest parked in the corner- it looks like someone dragged it in here- which has some ammo in it, but no transmitter.

Then I spot a green thing poking out of a glowing ash pile that used to be a synth. Damn it! I quickly drag it out of the pile with my boot, then gingerly tap it with a finger before picking it up. I don’t know how hot it actually is, but I can hold it with my gloved hands.

“Paladin Danse?” I hold it up for him to see. “You kind of, um, ashified the synth who had this. Do you think it’s still okay?”

 

He’s optimistic. “I believe so. This kind of pre-war technology is extremely durable.”

There’s a convenient elevator on the other side of the control room, and we take it up to the surface. I holster my pistol, but keep awkwardly holding the transmitter in my left hand. It’s not burning my hand or melting my glove, which is good, but I’m not sure if I want to put it in a bag with live ammo.

When we make it out of the building, night has already fallen. We stop just outside, and I hear Paladin Danse sigh. “Well, that could have gone smoother, but mission accomplished.”

That’s the understatement of the- no, I’m not going to tempt fate. “I suppose that’s it, then.”

“Not necessarily. That being said, I believe we have two important matters to discuss,” he replies, to my surprise. “First and foremost, if you’ll hand me the Deep Range Transmitter, I’d like to compensate you for your assistance.”

“Of course.” I hold it out, and he plucks it away with a giant metal hand. “Careful, it’s probably hot- right, power armor.”

To my surprise, he then safes his laser rifle and holds it out to me. “I think you’ll find this weapon useful. It’s my own personal modification of the standard Brotherhood laser rifle. May it serve you well in battle.”

It’s an incredibly generous gift, and I initially refuse to take it. I ask, “You’re giving me your rifle? Don’t you need it?”

“This isn’t the only weapon at my disposal,” he assures me. “I insist you keep it. The Brotherhood believes in paying all of its debts.”

I take the weapon. It’s weighty, maybe a little heavier than Nate’s AR100 and balanced a lot differently, but it’s in good shape and I’ve seen what it can do. I check the safety again, then sling it over my left shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome… civilian.” He pauses. “Now, as far as the second matter goes, I wanted to make you a proposal.”

“Okay.”

“We had a lot thrown at us back there. Our op could have ended in disaster, but you kept your cool and handled it like a soldier.”

That’s not how I would have put it. More like being barely functional on the edge of panic. If our positions were swapped, I wouldn’t try to bring me on as a soldier.

Maybe it really is a trap, or maybe they’re just after my armor, but when I think about it, no, it’s a probably lot simpler than that. If your typical wastelander is anything like most of the people I’ve met so far, they’re super flaky, way more likely to brush you off or even shoot you in the face than to help you. Fought by your side, didn’t steal your caps and run away, soldier material.

I hate this world.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that you’ve got what it takes,” he continues. Maybe he’s trying to butter me up. Maybe they’re desperate for any semi-steady recruit. “You could spend the rest of your life wandering from place to place, trading an extra hand for a meager reward. Or, you could join the Brotherhood of Steel and make your mark on the world.”

It’s a good speech, but…

“Sorry, but I can’t,” I answer earnestly, then admit, “When I said I’m just trying to survive, well, that’s not the whole truth. My son went missing, and I’m trying to find him. Right now, that’s the only thing that really matters to me.”

“I see. Well, I wish you the best of luck.” He’s disappointed, but it’s not something he’s going to argue. And he’s not shooting me like some kind of game was up. Instead, he just adds, “If you’re still interested after, you know where to find us. Good luck to you.”

I give him a friendly nod. “Thank you, Paladin. I’ll see you around.”

As we go our separate ways, I think to myself, maybe there is some hope after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed around the part with the test firing because I didn't think it made sense for Rose to just hit the button. I figured Danse would have to basically order her to do it. I never realized you could actually just NOT fire the engine until after I wrote this, and now I feel a bit stupid. But that's why that's there.


	12. Not Everyone Is Bad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been pretty busy, but I'm slowly getting these chapters done, and I'm almost caught up to my gameplay run!
> 
> Well, kinda.
> 
> I was actually way ahead, then I started over from a much earlier point for various reasons. The first run was way ahead, but this one I'm deliberately limiting myself to playing a bit, then writing until I'm caught up, then playing a bit more. It's slow going but I think we'll get a real strong story out of it.

I decide to take the longer route, going through Cambridge. There’s a rail bridge that looks reasonably intact and might have shortened the journey, but I know that the one we took is more or less safe.

I reluctantly stop by the raiders we killed and grab their ammo. The logical part of my stupid brain is telling me I should search them more thoroughly, but I’m grossed out enough just going through their pockets. I find some .38 for my pistol and a little bit of 10mm for Nate’s pistol. No rifle rounds, unfortunately, and I know I must be running low on those.

I see a fire in a barrel up ahead, and it’s a beside a building I recognize. Fraternal Post 115. I know they were interested in getting Nate to speak about the war before… before all this.

I’m pretty tired- it must be the middle of the night by now- so I’d love some friendly people and a decent place to sleep right now. I know that it’s kind of a long shot, and that they might just shoot me in the face, but I can’t keep myself from assuming not everyone is that bad. I mean, I just met some good people. Zealots, maybe, but we got along. So, finding the door unlocked, I open it and head inside.

It’s worse than I could have imagined, and I can’t stop myself from shrieking in terror.

There are bags full of bloody body parts. Piles of them, to my left and to my right. I hurriedly spin around and bolt out the door, drawing my pistol.

I hear a deep grunt and catch a glimpse of a green giant beside the building to my right. I hear a few gunshots and feel a few hits, but I’m already running, tearing down an alley, leaping straight over a fence, and darting down a side street in a vaguely southward direction. I think I see a feral ghoul, so I pivot and dash down another alley, zigzag over through a destroyed neighbourhood, and finally escape Cambridge entirely.

I’m not even going to think about the hell I just escaped from. Monsters? Cannibals?

I pop out of an alley, and thankfully, the bridge into Boston is right in front of me. It’s half-raised, with a ship jammed in it, but I can climb over that and then it won’t be too long to Fenway Park at all. Which is good, because I think it’s already morning and the fatigue is really starting to set in.

Crossing the bridge is creepy. I remember it always being busy, but now it’s dead. There are a few rusted-out cars, a bunch of debris, and some crude patches in the bridge deck. And then there’s the boat, which is lit up with a bunch of fires and I can see people wandering around on it.

I crouch by the railing and peer down at the people on the boat. They’re rough-looking, armed with pipe guns and wearing armor made from bits of scrap. They look like the kind of people who would shoot me. But it’s a wasteland. Except for the Preston and the Brotherhood, _everyone_ looks like that. They could actually be really nice people.

Or maybe not. One of them spots me, shouts, and then four of them raise their guns and start shooting.

Why is everyone so _mean_ in the future? Have we really fallen so far that “shoot first, then probably don’t bother to ask questions” is the norm?

I yelp, backpedal, and then try to hop over to the other side of the bridge. I guess I did it a little too fast, because that infernal jumpjet kicks in and I way overshoot. I try to twist so that I’ll land on the bridge again, but I don’t quite make it, instead bouncing against the railing and going tumbling into the water below.

I instinctively hold my breath and paddle like crazy towards what I hope is the surface. The water’s murky and there’s not much light, and to my dismay I feel my foot hit something hard jutting out of the bottom. I’ve gone the wrong direction. My lungs burn; I was never any good at holding my breath.

And then I realize what an idiot I am. I gasp for breath, figuring there’s at least a little air left in my suit, and get a lungful of fresh, clean air. I take another breath, deep this time, and then, reinvigorated, I kick off the bottom and breaststroke my way to the surface.

I almost broach it when I realize those bad guys are going to see the splash and shoot at it. I don’t know how much air I have, but it seems to be holding, so I dive back down and paddle blindly south, following my compass. The riverbed slopes up, and I stick close to it before poking up above the surface as slowly and quietly as I can.

They don’t seem to be chasing me, just standing on the boat and going back to whatever they were doing. Maybe they figured they shot me, I fell and drowned.

I drag myself out of the water, soaking wet. Technically, _I’m_ perfectly warm and dry in my cozy battle-and-apparently-diving suit, but all my pouches, all my weapons, everything I’m carrying is drenched. I wipe some of the water off my faceplate with my equally-wet gauntlet, then pop the magazine out of my pistol, shake it out, clear the chamber, and load it again. I glance back at the ship, then quickly do the same with my rifle.

I’m still going to have to do something about all the other things I’m carrying- some of the food and medicine is no doubt ruined, and if I leave my weapons wet they’ll rust. But for now, I should at least be able to shoot things if I have to. I’ll deal with the rest when I get to Fenway Park.

Of course, my shitty luck holds, and I run straight into a couple of raiders hiding behind a gate in the first alley I head down. He swears at me, and we start shooting at the same time. My waterlogged gun functions perfectly and I get three in his chest at close range.

I think he got more bullets into me than I got into him. I mutter to myself, “Thanks, battlesuit! You’re working really hard today.”

I _really_ need to get some sleep. I hear shouting from behind the gate, and I don’t wait to see what it’s about. I run back out of the alley and head down the next street. Fortunately, this one seems clear, except for the sounds of gunfire coming from straight ahead, right between me and Fenway Park.

I see a few signs pointing to Diamond City, and I head towards them. And, just as I feared, straight into a battle.

It’s an intersection surrounded by blasted-out buildings. On my side of the street, there’s some guys in what looks like baseball gear armed mostly with pipe rifles. On the other side, holed up in what looks like the remains of an old apartment, are a bunch of green giants.

I didn’t get a look at the last green thing, but the ones in the apartment block look familiar. Are they the same? I shiver in fear. Do these things rip people apart?

“Super mutants!” one of the guys in baseball gear shouts in fear, as his friend goes down to a rain of bullets, screaming in pain.

And once again, I find myself in a fight I don’t want, with no idea who I’m really fighting for.

“I’ll get him!” I shout, dashing forward with my pistol in hand. The other man retreats behind cover, I guess realizing that discretion is the better part of valor. Of course, the green things- super mutants?- turn their attention to me right away, and try their level best to fill me for of bullets.

I do my best to ignore the incessant beeping and light impacts, instead dashing to the downed baseball man. He looks pretty bad, with his jersey more red than white and some blood on the ground. He moans when I grab him, picking him half-up in one arm and pulling him back with my body between him and the bullets.

This kind of thing is probably bad for my health.

I pull him around the corner, beside on of the other men, and set him down. When I look at the arm I was supporting him with, I see that the armor is completely coated in blood.

“That was some move you pulled, sister,” the other man says. It definitely sounds like a compliment.

“What are those things?”

“You never seen a super mutant before?” he asks, confused and annoyed. “Bad news, that’s what they are!”

I glance back at the wounded man and jab a thumb in his direction. “Look, if you know a doctor, you’ve got to get him- he’s looking bad.”

He shakes his head. “Someone’s gotta hold the line.”

“I’ll do it,” I tell him, steeling my voice as best I can. Maybe to demonstrate, I unsling Nate’s rifle and crouch down, bringing it up with a stance that’s probably all wrong. “I’ll hold the line.”

The other two baseball players with guns are still fighting on, spraying the apartment with bullets and taking down one of the big green mutants. I aim at the head of the biggest guy and pull the trigger. There’s a splat of blood, and he turns to me, pissed off but very much not dead.

I keep pulling the trigger, feeling the gentle kick in my shoulder as I put rounds downrange. Then it goes click.

The mutant is bleeding from his head and neck, but he’s still standing. I quickly swap magazines as begins shooting at me with a hunting rifle, and find the next one is empty, too. My suit beeps at me again, and I’m shocked to see that my shields are more gone than not.

“Shit!” Remembering that I have grenades, I pull one out and lob it at the building. Sadly, I’m not a great throw. It almost lands by the big mutant’s feet, but skitters and falls, blowing apart one of his smaller friends instead.

I duck back behind the building and draw Nate’s pistol. It’s an awkward motion that requires passing it from my left hand to my right, and I realize too late that I probably should have attached that holster backwards so I could cross draw with my dominant hand.

Water drips from the weapon as I raise it, and I rack the slidey part, praying that it’ll actually go off. Fortunately, when I squeeze the trigger, it does. My first shot goes wide, but I get the second one into the big mutant, and keep blasting away until the slide locks back on an empty clip.

He goes down with a mighty crash, but someone’s still exchanging gunfire. I scan the apartments carefully, and see some flashes toward the right side. I don’t see the source of them- I think he’s taking cover behind a door frame. I’m behind an abandoned store, and if I run through it, I think I can get a better angle, though there’s not a lot of cover.

I take a deep breath and go for it, holstering Nate’s pistol and drawing my own as I run. I don’t know how it’ll do against those thick skins, but I have a full eight rounds in the clip. The mutant notices me and turns, but I already have my gun up and aimed, and I shoot him from ten feet away until he’s dead.

And that is the last of them.

“Damn, not afraid of mutants, huh?” one of the men says, impressed. “You’re our kind of gal.”

Very afraid, actually, but I don’t tell him that. “Mutants?”

“Yeah, super mutants, big green uglies,” he repeats. “They’re bad news, but the wall keeps ‘em out.”

“You’re guarding Diamond City, right?” I ask, finally putting all the pieces together. Baseball uniforms, diamond insignia, right beside the sign.

“That’s right,” the guard answers proudly. “Just down the street on your left. You can’t miss the Great Green Jewel.”

“Thank.”

He shakes his head. “No, thank you. We appreciate the help.”

I nod and head back out to the street, carefully reloading my pistol as I walk. I definitely need to do some maintenance- even just an oiling would help. Nate’s weapons are all sturdy military gear, but my gun is more of a target plinker, and it likes being clean and lubed up.

“What do you mean you can’t open the gate?” I hear an irritated woman shout. She’s got deep black hair, dressed in a dirty red coat with a press cap on her head. She’s standing right in front of a massive steel gate that’s all rusted, but still has some of the paint I remember. “Stop playing around, Danny! I’m standing out in the open here, for crying out loud!”

“I got orders not to let you in, Miss Piper,” a clipped voice replies through a speaker. “I’m sorry. I’m just doing my job.”

Piper waves her arms in the air, still totally focused on the speaker as I slowly approach. “Ooh, just doing your job? Protecting Diamond City means keeping me out, is that it? Ooh, look, it’s the scary reporter. Boo!”

“I’m sorry, but Mayor McDonough’s really steamed, Piper,” comes the reply. “Sayin’ that article you wrote was all lies. The whole city’s in a tizzy.”

I notice that she indeed has a little tab labelled “PRESS” stuck in her hat, and some pencils stuck in the back of one of her fingerless gloves. So there’s a newspaper here, and though they’re not happy with Piper, they haven’t shot her yet. Those are good signs.

“Agh!” the reporter shouts angrily, stopping just short of tearing her hair out. “You open this gate right now, Danny Sullivan! I live here! You can’t just lock me out.”

She sighs, then turns to me, whispering, “Hey, you. You want into Diamond City, right?”

I jump back, a little startled that she knew I was here. But I guess with all this battle rattle, I’m not all that stealthy. I manage a, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Play along.” She shushes me, and then raises her voice. “What was that? You said you’re a trader up from Quincy? You have enough supplies to keep the general store stocked for a whole month? Huh.”

“You know, if this is how citizens are treated here, I don’t know if I’d feel safe trading,” I pick up, playing along. Yeah, I can do this half asleep. Twisting words is child’s play. “I could just keep going up to Drumlin. It’s small, but they get a lot of traffic, and Trudy gives me the best deals.”

Piper continues, “You hear that, Danny? You gonna open the gate and let us in? Or are you going to be the one talking to crazy Myrna about losing out on all this supply?”

Finally, the man on the other side of the speaker- Danny- relents. “Jeez, alright. No need to make it personal, Piper. Give me a minute.”

The gate creaks and grinds, slowly creeping upwards by the two yellow supporting arms. Piper gives me a heads-up. “Better head inside quick before ole’ Danny catches on to the bluff.”

“After you,” I say, following her through the ticket gates. Everything’s rusty, dirty and broken, and there’s not a lot of lighting that still works, but this is Fenway Park, all right. What’s left of it.

“Piper! Who let you back inside? I told Sullivan to keep that gate shut!” a portly man in a tan suit shouts at her. Face red, he continues to rant, “You devious, rabble-rousing slanderer! The… the level of dishonesty in that paper of yours! I’ll have that printer scrapped for parts.”

The reporter shoots right back. “Ooh, is that a statement, mister McDonough? _Tyrant mayor shuts down the press!_ ”

And then she puts me on the spot. “Why don’t we ask the newcomer? You support the news? ‘Cause the mayor’s threatening to throw free speech in the dumpster.”

“Always believed in freedom of the press,” I recite automatically before I can stop myself.

The Mayor backpedals. “Oh, I didn’t mean to bring you into this argument, miss. No, no, no, you look like Diamond City material.”

Apparently, they’re looking for armed to the teeth, sopping wet, in dirty battle armor.

“Welcome to the great green jewel of the Commonwealth,” he boasts. “Safe. Happy. A fine place to come-”

“Uh, phrasing?”

“Pardon?” He gives me a look, and even Piper looks confused.

“Uh, nevermind. I’m sure your city truly is a great place.” Not that the standards are very high anymore. I can tell already that this man isn’t the most honest of individuals, but being merely sleazy puts him into the top ten people I’ve met so far.

“Yeah, greatest house of cards in the Commonwealth, before the wind blows,” Piper interjects snarkily.

McDonough coughs, trying his level best to ignore her. “Now, is there anything in particular you came to our city for?”

“Who would I talk to about finding a missing person?”

Piper harrumphs. “Well, whatever you do, don’t bother going to Diamond City Security for help.”

“Don’t listen to her,” the mayor urges. “While I’m afraid that our security team can’t follow _every_ case that comes through, I’m confident you can find help here. Diamond City has every conceivable service known to man. One of our great citizens can surely find the time to help you.”

“A mayor of a great city must know everyone,” I prod. “ _Who_ can help me?”

I can tell he doesn’t really want to answer, but he relents. “Well, there is one private citizen. Nick Valentine. A detective of sorts, who specializes in tracking people down. Usually for debts or whatnot.”

“Thank you,” I say with a nod.

He nods back. “Now, I have to get going. I’m sorry Diamond City Security doesn’t have time to help, but I’m sure Mister Valentine charges a reasonable fee.”

And by reasonable, he probably means I can’t afford it.

Piper continues to argue with the Mayor, but he just snaps an awkward retort, then harrumphs and walks away. I’m about to follow when she calls, “I’m impressed. Not everyone can claw information out of McDonough’s tight-fisted hands.”

“Eh, you just have to know how to play it,” I dismiss, yawning.

“Why don’t you stop by my office after you see Valentine?” she requests. “I think I just found my next story.”

“I would love to, but I’ve been on the road since yesterday and I’m about to drop,” I dodge. “Is there a motel or something in town?”

“Well, there’s the Dugout Inn,” she tells me. “The Bobrov brothers are… a little grating at first, but they’re good folk.”

“Much obliged,” I say, then head into the ballpark.

It’s been turned into a city, full of colorful scrapmetal shacks with a market in the middle and a big smoking piece of machinery in the center, but I’m just too tired to take it in. Instead, I mozy my way over to the dugouts, where a sign points me towards what looks like a sketchy bar.

It is, indeed, a sketchy bar. Even in the morning hour, there’s a few people drowning their sorrows. I walk up to the counter, struggling to keep a straight pose. The suit seems to help.

“You have rooms?” I ask the bartender, probably sounding pretty drunk.

“Talk to my brother, Yefim,” he tells me, motioning towards a similar-looking man sitting in a chair and reading a newspaper to the right.

“You have rooms?”

“Ten caps.”

I reach into my pouch and toss him what’s probably too much change, all dripping wet.

He deftly catches it, not even looking up from his newspaper. “You’re in room two, just through the door.”

I shimmy out of my vest, lean my guns against the wall, wedge the door with what I assume is a door wedge, then crash onto the bed and pass out.


	13. The Great Green Jewel

It’s three in the afternoon when I finally stumble out of bed. I’ve slept in an awkward position, and I’m pretty stiff, so I stretch a bit in a futile attempt to get the kinks out. After that, I start going over all the stuff that I soaked.

I go through my pouches, laying it all out on the floor. My food and water is still okay. Nothing that isn’t well-sealed lasted this long, so the worst damage is a few labels that might have come off anyway. I play with a can of Cram, but decide against trying to eat it. If it’s really been two hundred years, I don’t even want to see the contents look like. The only real loss is a bottle of Nuka-Cola, or what I assume is a bottle of Nuka-Cola, because it’s now just glass shards. My Quantum is still intact, and I make a mental note to drink it at the soonest opportunity.

I decide to have some lovely nutrient paste while I unpack. It tastes like, well, it doesn’t taste like anything. Maybe I can get something decent in town later. I have no idea how much paste I have, or where to get more, so I should probably save it for when I really need it if I can.

The medications are kind of like the food- if it wasn’t sealed, it wouldn’t have survived. Even then, I don’t know if any of this stuff is still good. Stimpacks are supposed to be highly durable for battlefield conditions, or something like that, but I don’t know if that extends to two hundred years and a nuclear war. The needles of Med-X and Psycho have expiry dates almost two hundred years in the past, and the bottles of Rad-X don’t have their original labels anymore- so for all I know, they could actually be hallucinogens. I keep it all anyway.

I take stock of my ammunition while I unload clips and dry bullets off. I’m completely out of 5.56, without even a stray bullet in a clip somewhere. I have about sixty rounds of .38 for my pistol, and seventy or so of 10mm for Nate’s. There are also a few stray pieces of .308, .50, and .45, and a dozen fusion cells which should be mostly charged.

The Tesla Science Magazine I’d nabbed in ArcJet, is, sadly, beyond saving. I briefly feel a pang of remorse. For all I know, this could be the only issue left in the world, which I ruined with my clumsy flopping. If I’d been more careful with it, this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe I could have still saved it.

It’s just a magazine, and a bit of a rag when it comes to that, but how much else has been lost? Some of my favorite music has, almost certainly. Those songs were already endangered before the war, with a few people still holding on to their tapes despite the stiff penalties, but most copies long since destroyed. I might never hear Beneath The Surface or The Heretic Anthem again.

I sigh, then turn my attention to my guns. I have a cleaning kit way back from our bomb shelter, and since it’s in a tin, it’s still okay. I start with Nate’s rifle, popping open the receiver and sliding the bolt out the back. I give it a wipe-down with the cleaner, then rub some oil on it. Probably too much, especially since I don’t know where to get more. After that, I run the brush and a few cleaning patches down the barrel. Good as new, or at least a little bit less dirty.

There’s a springy thing in the stock, but I leave it, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it back in again. Nate taught me to shoot his AR100, but he never taught me how to maintain it. I might have to find someone to help me out with that, or try to, anyway.

My pistol is much easier, because it really is, well, mine. I picked it, and I took care of it. It’s funny, because I really didn’t want a gun at first, but Nate practically insisted, and I got it just to humour him. Now I can’t see myself without it.

I field-strip it, clean the moving bits, swab the barrel, oil it up, and put the whole thing back together. I’ve done this before, but it’s never been this dirty. I’m actually surprised by the amount of black gunk that comes off on the patches and my gloves. I do the same to Nate’s 10mm pistol, which I’m not as familiar with, but I don’t disassemble it as far and it’s not as bad anyway. Just getting the water out and the oil on is the important part, I think.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with a laser rifle, so I just wipe the visible water drops off and hope nothing got inside to fry the electronics. After that, I pack everything back up and step out of my room.

As I leave the inn, I hear someone shouting about a customer getting blood on the bed again. I realize that it was probably me, and I almost turn back to apologize. But… it could go pretty badly. So, instead, feeling a little bad, I quicken my pace and head into town.

The daylight is bright, but not quite blinding. I get my first good look at Diamond City, and my first impression is not all that positive. All the buildings are shacks made out of junk, like the ones in communist countries they’d show us in the newsreels. But it’s the first place I’ve been to that’s remotely civilized. I catch a few snippets of conversation, and it sounds almost normal. One guy says I should see a guy named Abbot, and one of the guards warns me about a raider bar in the theater district as I pass by.

The market is in the center of the town, and while it’s just as junky, it’s clear commerce is alive and well. There’s even what seems to be a robot serving noodles in the middle. If we’re being honest, it isn’t big, but it’s lively, and I decide to wander it a bit. The entrance to the city is behind me, and I start from the right and go counter-clockwise.

I quickly pass by the rough-looking woman hacking up slabs of meat, hands and shirt all bloody. There’s an open-air clinic which is kind of disgustingly filthy, but probably the best option around. Right beside it is what I guess might pass for a pharmacy, but a lot shadier. The owner spouts a bunch of names of drugs I don’t recognize, and I wave him off.

“Diamond City Surplus! Everything you need!” a woman calls out to me. I start to approach, and she quickly snaps, “You! I don’t know you, just keep your distance.”

I ask simply, “Why?”

“Because I don’t know you, and I will not serve a synth pretending to be… human.” Is that a thing? Is she just paranoid, or is that actually something I need to be careful of?

She snaps, “So are you? Human?”

I don’t know what to tell her. “Um, yes.”

“Well, you do look human enough, but I’ll be watching you! I have eyes like a… well, they’re good eyes, got it?” She pauses. “Alright, we can do business, but no funny stuff.”

I briefly peruse her wares to be polite. I’m not really interested in scrap, though, so I don’t buy anything. Instead, I head next door to Commonwealth Weaponry. I was never a gun nut before the war, but I need ammunition.

“Hey, it’s the new girl. Am I right?” the dark-skinned man behind the counter says. I can’t place his accent. “Word kind of travels fast in Diamond City. What can I say?”

“Name’s Arturo Rodriguez,” he introduces, exaggerating the accent on the name. He’s suave, I’ll give him that, but honestly not my type. “If you need protection, let’s talk. You seem well outfitted, but I have a few surprises in stock you might find very interesting.”

I give him a little smile. “Just looking for some ammo today.”

He nods. “Ammunition? We have plenty of ammunition.”

Unfortunately, that’s only sort of true. He pulls out boxes of .38 and 10mm, but doesn’t have a single 5.56 round. I’m pretty disappointed, but I trade him a few shotgun shells and .45 cartridges, along with a fairly hefty pile of caps, for some extra pistol rounds.

“We usually have 5.56 rounds, but I’ve been selling a lot of ammunition lately,” he says apologetically. “Check back later, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.”

I thank him, then head out in search of Nick Valentine. It’s not hard to find him, or at least to find his office, anyway. I pass by a few people talking about some mythical “Railroad” before spotting the very distinctive neon sign. It’s a heart with an arrow in it beside stylized text proudly proclaiming “Valentine’s Detective Agency”, and its glamour stands out like a starlet at a frat party against its dismal surroundings.

I push the door to the shack open, probably a little harder than I should have because it rattles shakily on its hinges. The place really does look like a detective office. It’s as messy, dirty, and worn down as everything else in this world seems to be, but it’s laid out with a little reception and an office area behind and there are tons of files scattered around or in cabinets.

A woman in a black top and tattered pink skirt stands on the far end, ruffling slowly through files and muttering something about someone’s luck being up. She seems pretty sad. Just depressed about the miserable state of the world, or did a case go bad?

I’m assuming she’s the secretary or something, but… that’s a bit sexist of me. This isn’t Nick, is it? I’ve never met a girl named Nick, but who knows. I seem to remember the Mayor mentioning Nick as a _he_ , but honestly, I was exhausted so I don’t really know.

“Excuse me?” I ask quietly. “Is something wrong?”

“Another stray coming in from the rain,” she muses vaguely, slowly turning to face me with head hung low. “Afraid you’re too late. Office is closed.”

I keep my voice level, carefully controlled and perfectly polite. “I know you must be busy, but I won’t take much of your time. It’s important.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” she apologizes, sniffling. “It’s just… well… the detective. He’s gone missing.”

I suppress a groan. Great. This was my only lead, the only person I know of that could maybe help me, and of course, I can’t get to _him_. I try to keep the desperation out of my voice when I ask if there’s any, possible way I could find him.

“I shouldn’t… I guess it doesn’t matter now,” the secretary? partner? replies. “He disappeared working a case. Skinny Malone’s had kidnapped a young woman, and he tracked them down to their hideout in Park Street Station. There’s an old Vault down there they use as a base.”

I nod encouragingly.

“I told Nick he was walking into a trap, but he just smiled and walked out the door like he always does. But this time, I don’t know if he’s coming back. It’s been over a week now.” She sniffles again. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Hey,” I offer, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’ll find him. You have my word.”

“Thank you,” the woman says, weight visibly shifting off her shoulders. “Nick should be easy to spot. He’s always wearing that old hat and trench coat getup. Please, just hurry.”

“I will, miz…”

“Perkins. Ellie Perkins.”

“Rose Williams,” I answer back, grasping her hand in a firm handshake. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

I turn and stride confidently out of the office, and as soon as I’m out I basically collapse against the wall. I put on a brave face for Ellie, but faking confidence is literally what I did for a living. An underground vault full of gangsters? I’m a _lawyer_. Sure, I’ve dealt with gangsters, but in a court of law, not in a gunfight.

What am I getting myself into?

The man’s in trouble, and I need his help. I don’t have any other leads. If he’s already dead- no, I can’t think like that. I’m going to charge in, guns blazing, and emerge victorious with detective in tow.

Yeah, right.

I hear some shouting coming from the market, but I can’t make it out. Reluctantly, I push myself away from the wall and head over to investigate.

There’s a guy standing in front of the noodle place with his hands in the air, and another man with wild eyes training a gun on him. A few guards have their weapons up and ready, and everyone else is just standing there, gawking.

“Don’t move, synth!” the man with the gun shouts. “What have you done with the real Riley? Where’s my brother?”

“I swear, I’m not a Synth!” the other man begs, panicking. “Don’t shoot! For God sakes, we’re family!”

Before I can even think, I’m moving, putting myself between the two before they can react. I grab his gun and forcibly push it down toward the ground.

“Think about what you’re doing,” I say firmly. “Are you absolutely sure? Because if you’re wrong, you’d be killing your own brother. Can you live with that?”

It doesn’t work. Still struggling to get the gun up, he snaps at me, “Out of my way, you bitch!”

He tries to push past me, elbowing me aside. I don’t let him, and twist the gun out of his hands, but his finger catches on the trigger and it goes off.  The guards open fire, and I quickly push him to the ground, feeling something crack underneath me when I land on him with all my weight.

“Kyle, no!” his brother shouts.

“Hold your fire!” I yell as bullets ping off my armor. “He’s down, I’ve got him!”

When the shooting stops, I stand up, dragging Kyle up by his wrists and handing him over to the guard. He nods appreciatively. “At least someone in this town did more than just stand and gawk.”

“Okay, show’s over!” one of the guards shouts. “There are no Synths in Diamond City, hear me? Just you folks and your damn paranoia!”

I sigh and head for the path out of the city. I guess that’s my good deed for the day, but I’m already tired. Sick and tired of what the world’s come to.

“Hey, lady! Lady!” a girl shouts at me from in front of a shack. Piper’s daughter- no, sister - hands me a crudely printed newspaper. “Free paper to newcomers. If the Institute grabs you in the night, at least we warned you.”

I take the paper and tuck it under my arm. “I keep hearing about this Institute. What can you tell me about them?”

“They snatch people up in the night and no one hears from them again,” she tells me, voice low. “It’s all in the paper! Better read up before they grab you, too.”

I nod as the gears turn in my mind. Is the Institute just the Commonwealth’s scapegoat, or could they really be some shadowy force that kidnapped my son? I don’t even know where to begin answering that question.

The door to the shack- labeled _Publick Occurrences_ \- swings open and the woman I met last night steps out. “Hey, kiddo, how are the paper sales?”

“Well, the presses are getting overloaded,” the girl tells her. She mutters something about the motor, but my attention is all on Piper.

I didn’t notice it last night, but Piper is the first looker I’ve seen so far. Danse and Haylen were okay, and they had the military look going for them, and Preston maybe if he wasn’t wound up like a spring, but for the most part the wasteland is full of… well, dirty, ugly, very mean people. And I don’t mean to judge a book by its cover, but, I mean, most of them _did_ end up shooting at me.

Ditch the filthy, half-shredded trenchcoat, and Piper would rate even before the war. She’s got a face that’s soft, yet rugged at the same time, brilliant hazel-green eyes, and warm black hair that just touches her-

_What the fuck are you doing?_

Nate’s only been dead a week and your eyes are already wandering like a horny schoolgirl? We may have agreed a long time ago that if the worst came to pass, I should move on, but it’s too soon. Moving on means accepting that…

I know he’s dead. I saw him die. But I still can’t bring myself to accept that my world is gone.

Maybe not everything. Shaun is still out there. I hope.

I have to keep believing that, because it’s all I have left.

I quickly turn and leave. Piper shouts something after me, but I ignore it and keep going, eyes-front, until I’m out of the city.


	14. Can't Turn Back Now

I thought getting to the station would be the easy part.

The first challenge was just finding my way. I know how to get to Park Street Station from Fenway Park, but now there are streets blocked off by collapsed buildings, busted cars, and makeshift barricades. It started raining just as I leave Diamond City, and the fog rolled in, which doesn’t make things any easier.

I could hear gunfire, which automatically put me on edge, but I started really getting anxious when I saw the spikes near the bombed-out remains of Trinity Tower. They looked kind of like those hedgehog things, except sharpened. I could hear deep voices and see big green guys in the tower, so I ducked to the left and bolted past. It was a bad plan, though, because some of them saw me and I took a few hits.

At least they didn’t follow me when I ducked into some back alleys and nearly ran into a group of raiders. I know they heard me, because I heard shouting and guns being loaded, but there was a half-busted wall between us and I didn’t wait for them to get over or around it.

I passed by a Hubris Comics- no, _the_ Hubris Comics when I emerged out of the alleyway. I vaguely remembered this area, and headed west to Boston Common. There was a broken-down APC that still had a few grenades in it, which I reluctantly took before creeping along to the station entrance.

Not exactly a fun trip.

The thing is, the trip might still have been the easy part. I don’t know what I’m getting into. Gangsters, I believe, but now that I think of it, Ellie wasn’t all that specific about. I don’t know if they’re dug in, if they’re expecting me, how many there are, how well-armed they are, if they’ve laid traps… the list goes on.

Too late. I’m already committed. I grip my pistol tight, then push open the door to the station. It creaks and whines on its hinges, and I cringe, hoping it doesn’t draw too much attention. It doesn’t seem to, because I hear casual conversation up ahead. I creep down the escalators and carefully listen.

“I still say Malone’s weak,” a man says. “We caught that detective snooping around, and what does he do? Locks him up, like he ain’t the balls to just kill him.”

That’s a good sign. If that’s Nick they’re talking about, then he’s probably still alive. I just... I don’t want to mess this up. What if they kill him when I show up, like executing a hostage? What if this is a trap for me?

You’re being paranoid, Rose.

“Well, don’t let his new girl hear that,” another voice says. “She’ll start swinging that bat of hers at your face until there ain’t no face left!”

I peek around the doorframe. There’s one guy on the right, near the hallway to the bathrooms. Two on the left, towards the staircase going down to the platforms. They’ve got machine guns and 10mm pistols, but no armor. Just dirty suits.

Okay, Rose, you can do this.

I lean out a bit, line up the sights with the completely oblivious guy on the right, and pull the trigger. I miss. He turns. I fire three more times and _miss completely_.

They open fire, and I quickly duck behind the doorframe as they spray the area with bullets. Remembering the grenades I picked up, I take one, pull the pin, and toss it around the corner.

I realize as soon as the grenade leaves my hand what a terrible idea it was. There’s a loud thump I can feel, and screams of pain, but fortunately, the station doesn’t come down on us.

I take advantage of their shock, bolting around the corner with my gun raised. One of the men is still up, and I shoot him in the chest before he can shoot back.

I try not to look at the corpses as I pull the magazines from their pistols and stash them in my vest. One guy is literally blown to bits, another is mangled from the waist down. My stomach churns. I notice that they have no noses and their skin is all messed up… like the zombies.

So these must be the non-feral ghouls Preston was talking about. Assholes, maybe, but clearly not insane.

As I head into the station, I realize that I actually shot first. I didn’t even try to negotiate or hear their side, I just went in and killed them. For all I know, Ellie is the bad guy here, Nick’s a criminal, and I’m their accomplice. I didn’t question it, try to find another way, I just walked in and started shooting.

 _Shit_.

I can’t turn back now. There’s going to be crying, and probably drinking over this, but if I wasn’t committed when I made it to the station, I certainly am now. I’ve taken a side now, whether it was the right one or not.

It doesn’t sit well with me.

There’s a good view of the platforms from the staircase. I wish I had ammo for Nate’s rifle, but I don’t. Instead, I unsling the laser rifle that Paladin Danse gave me and load in what I hope is a fresh fusion cell. I take a deep breath, aim for the nearest oblivious maybe-bad-guy, and pull the trigger.

He literally _melts_. Somehow, that’s worse than all the blood and guts I’ve seen so far. I almost throw up in my helmet right then and there, but I bite back the bile and take out the guy next to him as what must be six or seven others open fire and pepper the half-wall beside me with bullets. Some of them punch through, spraying me with razor-sharp shards of tile and concrete.

One of them foolishly runs out in front of the staircase, trying to flank me, and I burn a hole in his chest with the laser rifle. He glances down in surprise before collapsing, and I suppress another wave of nausea.

I crawl to the bottom behind the half-wall and peek out at the platform. It’s covered in broken trains, crates, and other junk, and the rest of the gangsters (maybe- they look kind of like gangsters) have wisely retreated to the opposite platform. I take aim at one, gritting my teeth as bullets pepper my shields, and blow his head off. I aim for his companion, but the gun clicks and refuses to fire.

I guess that cell wasn’t so fresh after all. I duck behind the wall again- though really, it’s almost useless- and dig through my pockets for another cell. I grab it, slam it in, and finish the job.

It’s quiet for the moment, but there could be more. I grab one of the machine guns- it looks kind of like an old-timey tommygun, and I wonder if they did that on purpose. It’s hefty, and the magazine seems to be full. I check the side rooms first, but they’re dead ends, so I head down the tracks, which slope down. It feels wrong to do that- I’d had it drilled into me from a young girl how to be safe around trains- but I don’t think there are any trains running anymore.

There’s some construction equipment and a half-finished platform up ahead. One man with a machine gun is standing in a hole in the wall, smoking a cigarette. I aim my purloined weapon and pull the trigger.

It chatters and jumps around in my hands, and I struggle to keep it on target, but the spray of bullets does the job, perforating him. Two more guys come running out toward me, and I cut them down in their tracks.

I look around to make sure it’s clear before heading for the entrance to the vault. The gear-shaped, rusty yellow and gray entrance door looms before me. The number 114 in the middle reminds me that it’s not the same vault, but it’s all too familiar nonetheless. The memories are fresh, painful, and raw, and I don’t want to go inside.

I take a deep breath, plug my Pip-Boy into the control panel, and slam my fist down on the button. The door begins squealing and clanking loudly, before it pulls in and rotates out of the way. I raise my arm to shield myself from a badly placed floodlight just inside the entrance chamber.

It’s not quite the same as the entrance hall in Vault 111, but it’s close enough to install fear and dread. I reluctantly take a timid step onto the entry catwalk.

“Goddamn it, I hate it when they open the door,” a rough voice complains. For a better or worse it’s a distraction from the bad memories at the edge of my mind. I crouch down and raise the machine gun.

“Hello? That you Skinny? Darla?” He comes around the corner, weapon loose in his hands, looking a bit perplexed. I squeeze the trigger and struggle to keep the gun on target, filling him with bullets.

“What the-” Another gangster bolts around the corner, and I whirl and gun him down too. The bullets tear apart his chest before the gun clicks empty in my hands. 

Trying not to look at the fresh corpses, I unceremoniously toss it. Maybe I should keep the gun, but I’m awkward enough carrying Nate’s rifle and the laser rifle I got from Paladin Danse.

I head into the room on the right. There’s some stimpacks and radiation drugs in here, including some very suspect IV bags labelled “RadAway” in permanent marker. I grab them anyway, then head back and try the middle door. Of course, it’s jammed shut, leaving me with only one way to go. I head through some half-finished rooms full of crates and down a few flights of stairs before I hear a voice and slow down.

“So, I got a question,” a man asks. “Why the hell would anyone build a Vault out of a subway station? This place is like… the opposite of air tight.”

“Because they weren’t planning to use it, you moron,” a different voice shoots back. “We used to pull this kind of con all the time back before the war.”

I pause in my tracks. It might just be odd phrasing, but it sounded like he was _there_. I guess it’s not impossible. Maybe I’m not the only human popsicle, and some of these gangsters are ghouls, which if Preston is to be believed, live longer.

I wish we could talk. I wish I could be reasonable and he could be reasonable back. But I’ve already killed his friends, and I don’t think he’ll be too happy about that. Even I hadn’t, ninety plus percent of the people I’ve met so far have believed in shooting first and asking questions later.

It’s with a heavy heart that I lean around the corner, take aim at the hapless ghoul gangsters, and blow their heads apart with my laser rifle. I avoid looking at them as I head for the far end of the maintenance corridor. I’m hoping the door at the other end leads into the Vault and toward Nick Valentine, but honestly, I don’t know where I’m going.

Even still, this has been one of my better days so far, and I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry.

Turns out it opens into some kind of cave, with a catwalk going down and a few pipes running across it. There are some gangsters patrolling, but they haven’t noticed me. I aim my rifle at one, and the little red diamond pops up. I notice that it stays when I look away and a little icon shows up at the bottom of my HUD. I tag the other guys I can see.

It’s almost easy, disturbingly so.

Naturally, I understand the theory but totally botch the execution. I hit one guy in the chest and he goes down, but as soon as that happens, his friends start scattering and shooting back. My second shot only grazes one of the men, and I fire wildly as a few of them- including one I hadn’t seen before- run up the stairs towards me. Half my shots hit the cave wall, and I duck back behind the doorway to reload.

I dig in my pouch for another fusion cell as bullets ricochet around me, jam it into the rifle and flip the lock shut. I’m screaming as I bolt around the corner and fire wildly at the last two, catching one guy in the chest and then burning a bunch of holes in the other guy as their bullets ping all around me (and probably into me).

Yeah, that could have gone a lot better.

I grab a few dropped magazines and a pouch full of bottlecaps as I stride past the corpses, down towards another structure at the bottom of the cave on the same face.

One door is shut, the other is jammed open. They both lead to the same room, which is clearly being used by the gangsters. There’s a sleeping bag on the floor, a pack of cigarettes, a few bottles of booze, and a wad of cash which I slip into my hip pouch. The door on the opposite side is jammed shut, but there’s an open access panel open in the floor, leading down into the vault.

I peek down and hesitate. It’s a drop of two stories- short stories, but still- down, and there’s no ladder. Maybe with my jetpack I can get back up, if I can figure out how to control it and not brain myself on the ceiling. I guess if I have to go back this way, I _can_ get back up in theory, and I’ll figure out the details if and when I need to.

It’s way, way too late to back out now.

I lie down on the floor and carefully inch backwards, dangling my feet down the hole. I’m not the strongest gal in the world. I can’t even do a proper pull-up. I know this suit makes me stronger, but it also makes me heavier.

I’m so focused on holding myself up that I don’t realize that my fingers are slipping until it’s too late. I scramble for purchase but find none and go tumbling over the edge.

“Oh, shit!”

I manage to land on my feet, mostly, and I’m proud of that but then I hear a voice coming from the hallway.

“What the hell?” I hear a voice shout. Loud footsteps echo from the hallway, and I draw Nate’s pistol in anticipation. As soon as the gangster- this one not a ghoul- rounds the corner, I pull the trigger. I keep squeezing until the gun clicks empty, and both the gangster and the door frame are full of bullet holes.

Stepping carefully around the corpse, I reload and keep going down the corridor. I don’t want to think about my body count today- it’s much higher than I would like and I keep telling myself it’s better than dying like that’s supposed to make me feel better.

You’re doing this for Shaun and Nate. Find Valentine, find the son of a bitch kidnapper-slash-murderer, get my baby back.

A few more winding corridors and I’m finally at what I assume is the main hall. I noticed a pristine box of Abraxo cleaner on the way down, and almost grabbed it before I realized that I had absolutely no use for it. I also saw a lightbulb.

Why is that even important? I guess… yeah. The adrenaline of combat is fading, and the fatigue setting in. I’ve probably been running on fumes since waking up in the Vault, and just have been too busy to notice it.

The main hall, or what I’m assuming is the main hall, is a big, open space. Well, pretty big considering that it’s buried deep underground. I’m standing on a half-level with spaces to each side and staircases leading up and down. Below is the actual open area, although it’s covered in junk, and above is a round window on the wall with a man behind it and a man standing on my side in front of it.

“Keep talking, Dino,” a growly voice, um, growls. It’s muffled, so I think this is the man behind the window. “It’ll give Skinny Malone more time to think about how he’s gonna bump you off.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Valentine,” the man out front says, gesturing. “You know nothing, you’ve got nothing.”

I let out a sigh of relief. I’m not too late, the detective is still alive. Carefully and quietly, I skirt the edge of the hall toward the staircase on my left.

“Really? I saw him writing your name down in that black book of his,” Valentine insists. “Lousy, cheating card shark I think were his exact words. Then he struck the name across three times.”

“Three strikes? In the black book?” Dino asks rhetorically, starting to panic. “But I never… oh no, I gotta smooth this over, fast!”

He’s so distracted that he runs straight into me on the stairwell. A look of surprise crosses his face, but with a speed that surprises even me (or especially me)- I bring up my pistol and shoot him in the chest point-blank. He looks down in surprise as the blood soaks his shirt, then tumbles down the stairs.

There’s blood on my pistol and all over me. I try to wipe it off, but only smear it around.

“Hey, you. I don’t know who you are, but we got three minutes before they realize muscles-for-brains ain’t coming back,” Nick Valentine calls from inside his prison. “Get this door open. The terminal should unlock the door, and I’ll bet our mutual friend had the password on him.”

I’ve done it a few times now, but I still hate, hate, hate searching corpses with a burning passion. For one, it’s really gross. Usually they’re covered in blood, and when people die their bladder and bowels let go. I wouldn’t do this at all without my gloves. Even if I hadn’t had that one horrible experience where I ended up with my hand inside the dead guy, it would still just feel _wrong_. It’s just another shitty nasty thing that everyone seems to take for normal now.

I take a deep breath and start turning out his pockets. Fortunately, Dino was lazy, and in his breast pocket I find a card-sized piece of metal with an 8-character code scratched into it. For a moment I was worried I’d have to search in _really_ gross places. Instead I take the card and cross my fingers that it’s the right code.

Fortunately, the terminal accepts it without demur, and I hammer the ENTER key once it’s logged in. The door whooshes open, and I get my first real look at the thing they call Nick Valentine.

“What the fuck are you?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the nicest reaction to Nick Valentine. But Rose has had all of one exposure to synths, and it didn't go too well. Don't worry, I'm not writing a rabid anti-synth Sole Survivor. More of a skeptical one with a character arc around it ;)


	15. The Metal Parts Ain't Comforting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about this. It's been, what, three months since the last update? I totally forgot about this fic, and left it on a really weird and ugly cliffhangar. But I'm back on it now, with this chapter and more coming.

“I’m a detective,” it replies, not skipping a beat despite the gun I have raised at its head. “Look, I know the skin and the metal parts ain’t comforting, but it’s not important right now.”

 _Ain’t comforting_ is an understatement. “Nick Valentine” is not a man, but a robotic facsimile of one. I’m not sure if it’s an Institute synth, but that’s the closest thing I can think of, except instead of being clean and intact, it’s all dirty and worn out, with holes in the neck and face showing mechanical innards below. Unlike the synths I ran into at ArcJet, this one is wearing a faded trench coat and fedora, and speaks with a strong Boston accent.

I’m trying not to jump to conclusions, but this is just freaky, and I’m getting a lot of mixed signals.

“You went through a lot of trouble to cut me loose, which means you must have had a good reason for it,” the detective continues, nonchalantly lighting a cigarette and placing it between plastic lips. Smoke curls creepily out of the holes in its neck. “Like it or not, we’re on the same side, so how about you put the gun down and we talk this out.”

It’s a machine, but machines can still be useful. Except… the last synths I met tried to kill me. But the last synths weren’t anything like this, weren’t human- unless this one was an infiltrator. But if it was, it sure isn’t doing a good job of it anymore. And Ellie and the Mayor vouched for Nick and seemed to think of him as a person… if I take them at their word.

I just don’t know who to trust.

“It ain’t an easy thing these days, that’s for sure,” the synth agrees. He chuckles, something which I can’t help but find odd. “Yeah, you said it out loud, all right. Might as well spit out the whole story, then.”

“Don’t make me regret this,” I growl with simulated menace, holstering my pistol with very real reluctance. I can pretty much tell it saw right through the act but decided to roll with it anyway.

“So you come in playing reverse damsel in distress, decked out in pre-war military gear- but not acting all that military, if we’re being honest with ourselves- all for yours truly,” it muses, taking another drag. Or trying to, it’s more just smoke puffing through the gaping holes. “Quite an interesting story, I’d imagine. If this was an old debt I’d know it by now, so you must want to find something- or someone- real bad.”

I arch an eyebrow.

“Like I said, I’m a detective.”

“I’m tracking a kidnapper, a murderer,” I explain reluctantly. “The bastard who shot my husband and took my baby. I don’t even have a clue who he is or where he’s gone. Just… a few people told me I should head to Diamond City and come to you. So that’s what I did.”

It nods, looking almost sympathetic as it tosses the cigarette away in a remarkably lifelike gesture. “You got troubles, that’s for sure, and I’m glad to help. But we’ve burned enough time already. Turns out the runaway daughter I came here to find wasn’t kidnapped- she’s Skinny Malone’s new flame, and she’s got a mean streak. Could be back here any minute now to bash my brains in. Let’s blow this joint, then we’ll talk some more.”

I’m creeped out and deeply suspicious, but maybe a robot acting like a hardboiled detective isn’t even all that crazy. No matter what, this is the only lead I’ve got. “Alright. Let’s go.”

“Nick” leads the way, moving quickly and surely. I keep one hand by my pistol just in case either he turns on me or the gangsters come back.

“Malone’s crew here used to be small time, muscled out of the old neighbourhood by bigger players. Until they found this place,” it explains as we backtrack toward the entrance. “Don’t know what happened to the previous owners, but they’re not exactly around to charge rent. An empty vault… perfect hideout.”

To my surprise, we don’t head back out the way we came, but rather go down the stairs toward the courtyard. I briefly wonder if it’s a trap or actually a better way out when I hear a door whoosh open and some gangsters talking loudly.

“There they are,” Nick says, gesturing to the three gangsters at the far end of the room rapidly moving toward us. “How do you want to play this?”

I whisper, “Nonviolently, but that isn’t an option, is it?”

“We can try to sneak by, but they seem to be pretty on their toes.”

I sigh, draw Nate’s pistol (the backwards holster really was a good idea!), and creep around the corner into the doorframe. One of the gangsters is only a few paces away. He notices me, but I’m quicker, snapping up my pistol and pulling the trigger. Blood spurts from the man as he twists under the blows.

His friends are already shooting at us. One of them has a tommygun and he sprays bullets at us, ricochets bouncing around the doorframe. I duck as low as I can and take careful aim, but Nick is ahead of me, putting three rounds in his chest.

The last guy is more cautious, taking cover behind a table. Unfortunately, it’s not a solid table, and I fire repeatedly between the slats. He screams in pain and surprise, collapsing into a pool of his own blood.

Gunfight over, I stand and carefully reload, trying not to look at my handiwork.

“Just when I thought we were getting along,” Nick mutters.

I pause to grab a dropped magazine, then follow it out the far end of the room. It looks like some kind of maintenance hall, but when I peek into one of the side rooms I realize that this is the showers, just never quite finished.

“Hard and loud, huh?” my companion comments. “Well, it gets the job done. Too bad for whoever cleans up the floors…”

“I don’t like violence,” I snap. “I just… I’m not a violent person, but everyone seems to be shooting at me and I haven’t had much choice but to shoot back.”

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, that’s for sure,” the synth agrees. He pauses at the end of the hallway and tries the door before sighing and fiddling with the mechanism. “This door’s on the fritz. Let me see if I can get it open…”

It’s weird watching a mechanical man struggle with a door switch, especially when he- it- mutters constantly while doing it. I stand awkwardly for what really isn’t that long of a time, maybe thirty seconds, and then the door grinds open and we’re heading up a staircase again. A set of signs on the rusted, filthy wall helpfully states that the residential area, laundry, cafeteria, nursery, and all-important exit are up the stairs.

“Who made that noise?” someone mutters uneasily from up ahead.

Nick shoots me a look that seems apologetic, then takes the lead. I guess synths can be pretty quiet, certainly a lot quieter than you’d think from looking at them. The detective rounds the corner and puts three rounds from a crude-looking revolver into the gangster at the top.

I glance at the corpse just long enough to see that he only had a baseball bat, no gun, before moving on. The hallway up ahead is blocked off by crates, probably on purpose, but there’s shouting and fast footsteps coming from our left.

Nick is already bolting for the door and I hurry to follow. It’s a bedroom on the other side, with another door to another hallway and a gangster poking through the frame. We waste no time, cutting him down with bullets and bolting into the hallway.

His friend isn’t quite as stupid, and opens fire from the other end as we jump through the doorway. I hear a grunt behind me and feel a few bullet hits, but before I can get my gun aimed Nick has already put three in his chest.

And then, all is quiet.

“How tough are you, Nick?” I ask the synthetic detective as I pick up the gangster’s submachine gun. I’ll probably end up tossing it like the last one, but up close I could use the extra firepower.

“What do you mean?”

I’m curious, but also- as much as I hate to admit- concerned. “I mean, if you get hit…”

“I don’t know exactly, to be honest,” Nick responds, letting me take the lead. “My arms and legs are pretty durable and not too hard to fix- usually- and I’ve been shot in the chest and lived to tell the tale. Pretty sure getting shot in the head would be just as deadly for me as it would be for you, but I’m not exactly eager to test that.”

We pass through another bedroom and end up on the other side of the box-barricade. There’s a kitchen across from us, and I peek my head in for a look. There’s some unrusted tin cans and some clean plates, as well as some impeccable bottles of whiskey on the counter. I feel a pang of the sadness- none of that would have been out of place in the world I knew, and now it’s all something rare and unusual.

“More stairs?” Nick comments as we move on, “Who built this damn Vault, a fitness instructor?”

I’ll reticently admit, that got a chuckle out of me.

I catch a glimpse of the nursery across the hall at the top, easily identified by the crib and child-friendly wallpaper. Anger flashes through my and I clench my purloined weapon tightly.

Which is just as well, because a second later a gangster jumps out in front of us. I don’t hesitate at all, holding down the trigger and ripping him apart with a stream of bullets before he can even raise his own gun. The man stumbles and crashes to the ground, jacket perforated with bloody holes.

I feel a few bullets hit me as I emerge into the hallway, and quickly flatten myself against the back of a . There’s another gangster at the other end of the hallway, taking cover behind an almost identical pillar. He sticks his head out briefly, ducking back behind when I spray the pillar with bullets.

“You don’t have to do this!” Nick shouts. He’s still, wisely enough, behind the doorframe.

I lean around and let off another burst, which is cut short when the gun clicks empty. He takes the opportunity to shoot back, but a few rounds from Nick send him back behind cover. I drop the gun and switch back to Nate’s pistol.

I notice an open door to my left and bolt towards it. The gangster realizes what I’m doing, but he only manages to crack off a few quick shots before I’m safely behind the doorframe. He’s now stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to take cover from both me and Nick at the same time.

I don’t know who fired the killing shot and I don’t want to know, but a few seconds later the battle is over.

Nick looks almost nervous as we climb what seems to be the last staircase (it says “Exit Zone”, anyway).

“Skinny Malone and the rest of his boys are waiting for us, somewhere,” he states without prompting. “The name’s, uh, _ironic_ , but don’t let that fool you. He’s dangerous.”

I bite back a pithy remark, instead holstering Nate’s pistol and drawing my own. The clip is smaller and it’s not as powerful, but I’m more comfortable with my own gun.

We stop in front of another locked door. As Nick fiddles with it, I notice a box of vault suits still in their packages. I pick up one of the vacuum-sealed plastic pouches, having mixed feelings as I examine it. I’m not eager to put one of those on again, but clean clothes are probably a rarity. Well, maybe I can sell it. I decide to take one with me.

“Okay, I got it, but I hear big, fat footsteps on the other side,” the detective tells me. “Once we step through that door, get ready for anything.”

I carefully check my pistol. There’s a round in the chamber. “Got it.”

Sure enough, there’s an entourage waiting for us on the other side. Two gangsters stand at the ready with their machine guns, along with a portly man in a full suit-and-bowtie mobster outfit- that must be Skinny Malone. Right beside him is a rough-looking woman in a weird shiny dress and a mean-looking baseball bat.

“Nicky? What’re you doing?” Skinny Malone snaps at us, clearly not very happy. “You come into my house, shoot up my guys… you have any idea how much this is gonna set me back?”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your two-timing dame, Skinny,” Nick shoots back, playing it cool. “You ought to tell her to write home more often.”

“Aw, poor little Valentine,” the woman mocks. “Ashamed you got beat up by a girl? I’ll just run back home to daddy, shall I?”

“Shoulda left it alone, Nicky,” the mob boss continues. “This ain’t the old neighborhood. In this Vault, I’m king of the castle, you hear me? And I ain’t lettin’ some private dick shut us down now that I finally got a good thing going!”

“I told you we should’ve just killed him, but then you had to get all sentimental!” the woman snaps at Skinny. “All that stupid crap about the _old times_.”

“Darla, I’m handling this! Skinny Malone’s always got things under control!”

“Oh yeah? Then what’s this lady doing here, huh? Valentine must have brought her here to rub us all out!”

I resist the urge to make a snarky remark and try not to dwell on the fact that I haven’t rubbed one out in two hundred years- god, the fatigue is really getting to my filters.

“Darla, listen to me,” I say firmly but softly. “You have a home to go back to. That’s not something anyone can take for granted these days. Do you really want to throw your life away with these flaky thugs?”

“I… I… no, you’re right!” Darla stammers, dropping the baseball bat. “What am I doing? I’ve gotten all mixed up!”

Skinny grabs her by the shoulder as she turns for the door. “Darla, where are you going?”

She pulls her arm away. “Home, Skinny! Where I should have been all this time. This is goodbye for us.”

Skinny sighs, but lets her go. He turns to us, and anguish in his voice, growls, “Oh, come on, Nicky! You cost me my men, now you and your friend cost me my girl?”

The detective replies wryly, “My friend here just did you a favour, Skinny. You always did have bad taste in women. Now that she’s not around to feed that temper of yours, maybe you’ll see sense and let us walk? You still owe me for two weeks in the hole.”

“You smug, overconfident ass…” I tense up, worried that the mobster will just open fire, but instead he waves to his men and they lower their weapons. “Alright, you get to the count of ten! I still see your face after that, I’m gunning both of you down!”

Neither of us give him a chance to change his mind. I bolt for the vault door, Nick right on my heels. I don’t even go down the stairs, just leap over the railing like some kind of action hero (and I almost stick the landing, too).

I duck behind a piece of heavy machinery, but Nick motions with his hand and keeps going, so I follow him toward a very rusty door and find myself in a machinery passage with a ladder at the far end. There’s some light streaming through the trapdoor, and sure enough, when he throws it open we’re right on the surface again.

“Ah, look at that Commonwealth sky,” Nick muses. It’s starting to get dark, and a few bright stars are just visible through the haze. “Never thought anything so naturally ominous could end up looking so inviting…”

“It was different in my day,” I tell him. “Not clear, but not ominous, either. Nothing like this.”

He shoots me a look that’s equal parts puzzled and understanding, but then it fades from his odd robotic face. He inquires professionally, “Thanks for getting me out, but how did you know where to find me? Not many people knew where I went…”

“Your secretary, Ellie, she sent me,” I respond with a shrug. “I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t really have any other options. I’m just glad this worked out as well as it did.”

“Well, you and me both,” he agrees, lighting another cigarette and letting the smoke drift. “We should head back to Diamond City. Once we’re back in the relative safety of my office, you can fill me in.”

“Sounds good, Nick.” I holster my pistol and extend a hand.

He takes it, grip firm but lifelike. “Glad to hear it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've said before that Rose wasn't going to automatically trust synthetics, coming from a world where robots were a lot simpler. Rose is warming up to Nick even if she was hostile at first, but accepting synths isn't going to happen overnight.
> 
> Next up, back to Diamond City, and the interview with Piper that Rose ran away from the first time. There's going to be much more dialogue that wasn't in the game in the next few chapters and I think it'll work well.


End file.
